Double Agent
by The Wize 1
Summary: Charlotte Anderson, the new girl at the Academy of Espionage, is not your average CIA spy. She's actually a SPYDER agent who infiltrated Spy School under orders to eliminate Spy School's golden boy, Ben Ripley. But having a foot on both sides causes her loyalty to SPYDER to waver when she realizes not everything she's heard about the CIA is right.
1. Chapter 1: World Domination and Fro-yo

**So this is a little intro to the fanfic I just wrote.** **Sorry because it's kinda short. This idea just came to me randomly and I wrote it all in an hour. If it doesn't suck I'll continue to develop it. I've read some Spy School fanfiction and I thought I'd do something a little different with the story.**

 **Disclaimer: I'm not Stuart Gibbs.**

* * *

 _Somewhere in the US_

 _SPYDER's Headquarters_

 _0400 hours_

"You've got a mission." Joshua Hallal told me. "Infiltrate the Academy of Espionage. You're familiar with the school, aren't you? Good. Find the files about SPYDER in the principal's office. Then just delete them. Sound easy?"

We were sitting at a table in one of SPYDER's headquarters, eating our ice cream sundaes casually like we weren't discussing the best way to cause mass destruction. We were playing that game again, pretending to be casual. Joshua's distorted, scar ridden yet still handsome face was impassive. The one green eye that wasn't covered with an eyepatch glinted with a challenge.

I swirled my spoon around in my half melted, untouched ice cream. "Easy as pie."

He scraped the remaining ice cream off his bowl. "Good." He raised an eyebrow at my ice cream. "Are you going to eat that?"

I rolled my eyes and pushed it toward him. "I hate strawberry."

"Give it to me, then. No sense in wasting good food." I watched as he stuck his spoon in my bowl. "There's a catch in the mission," he said suddenly, between a bite.

"Oh?" I asked, interested.

"After you delete the files, you'll have to pose as a new recruit for Spy School." Joshua paused, trying to gauge my feelings toward this by watching my eyes. I shrugged nonchalantly, my expression bored. He nodded in approval and continued. "I know that the whole attack-the-system from the inside isn't really our style, but there's some things we need to know about the CIA."

"Like what?"

He looked at me seriously. "Like Ben Ripley."

I couldn't help the huff of laughter that came from my mouth. "You mean the kid who threw you off a cliff?"

Anger flared in his one eye. It didn't make me flinch like it used to. I was thirteen, five years younger than Joshua, but unlike him, I had been recruited by the SPYDER director herself when I was nine. Joshua might've had old CIA roots, but I had been loyal to SPYDER longer than him. We had the same ranking, and he knew he couldn't order me around than he could the director of SPYDER.

"Yes," he said, and I could tell he was gritting his teeth, "The kid who threw me off a cliff."

"What does he have to do with your plan?"

"Ben Ripley, as you know, has been on our radar for a very long time. He's thwarted our plans more times than I can count. You know what this means?" Joshua didn't bother to wait for me to answer the question. "It means he's a threat."

"Well, obviously."

He kept on speaking like I hadn't commented. "Since you and Ripley are the same age, you should be in the same year. Cozy up to him. Help him study, bump into him in the hallway, slip him a love letter, whatever you feel is necessary. He has to trust you enough for you to convince him to skip class and meet you by a select location, where we will-" He made the throat-slitting sign with a guttural noise that was scarily accurate to killing someone.

Frankly, I didn't see the point of the plan. "Why can't I just shoot him?"

"Because," Joshua said with an overly patient air, "You'd alert every single CIA agent that it was SPYDER's doing. They'll catch on and immediately catch on. You'd be in a holding cell, and they'd interrogate every single living cell of you before they snuff you out."

"I wouldn't just shoot him in front of the entire cafeteria. I can just kill him while he's sleeping and slip out a window or something."

"Too much risk of being caught," he dismissed.

"Your confidence in my skills is flattering." But I didn't press the subject. I thought of another point. "How am I becoming a recruit in the first place? Am I just supposed to walk up to the school and say, 'What's up, I'm a new recruit'?"

"First of all, 'What's up, I'm a new recruit' is moronic-"

"It's called sarcasm, Joshua-"

"Secondly, SPYDER's got that covered. Word's already got to the principal that you're a special case. You'll be going by 'Charlotte Anderson' and you have a penchant for hacking and shooting guns. There's a new spot that opened up in the Academy of Espionage, so having you suddenly appear won't raise any eyebrows."

Charlotte Anderson. I could roll with that. I was the best in my class at target range, so that should be easy. Hacking, to be honest, wasn't really my strong point, but I knew enough about it to pass it off as a computer whiz. I nodded. "Sounds simple."

"But your cover story isn't the part that's important."

He stopped to scoop some strawberry sundae in his mouth.

"What the important thing?" I prompted him.

"Erica Hale," he said, wiping his mouth.

"Your ex?" I said bluntly.

Joshua's expression turned sour. It faintly resembled a lemon. "We never dated. But she's a threat. Knowing her, she's kept tabs on everyone in the entire student body. She'll be curious about you, and she'll do her best to figure out if you're an enemy or a friend. If you're an enemy, she won't hesitate to kill you."

"Killer ex-girlfriend. Gotcha."

"This isn't a joke," he said sternly.

The Debbie Downer, as per usual.

His gaze sharpened like he could tell what I was thinking. "You cannot fail this assignment. I trust you'll remember everything?"

"Delete files, befriend Ben Ripley, stick to the cover story, avoid crazy ex girlfriend," I recapped. "Oh, and then kill him."

"Looks like you've got it." Joshua smiled grimly. "Good luck."

"Luck's for losers," I told him. I pushed myself out of the chair and strode away, calling over my shoulder. "I'm going to go pack my stuff and hijack a car. Enjoy your sundae."

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 **Thoughts? Feedback? I love reviews.**


	2. Chapter 2: Home Sweet Home

_Washington, probably_

 _CIA Academy of Boring Stuff_

 _0630 hours_

Two hours and a trashed car later, I stood outside the gates of the Academy of Espionage, which turned out to be in Washington, DC. To sum it up, DC sucked. It was freezing cold. I was only wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, so it was even colder for me. The only lugguage I carried was a worn out backpack. It held a couple of extra clothes, my favorite throwing knives, a snow globe because I felt like it, and more than enough candy bars. From what I heard, the food at Spy School was less than exemplary.

In fact, according to Joshua, everything about it was terrible. The bathrooms, the dorms, the instructors, the principal, the quality of everything, even the security sucked. I gathered that at least one of the above was accurate, because I'd been waiting for five minutes and the security had yet to open the gate. Normally, I would have just climbed the gate, but that would probably make a bad impression.

"What's taking so long?"

The male agent behind the gate was completely unapologetic. "We need to make sure you're not an enemy agent."

"Well, aren't you a wonder to be around," I muttered. Louder, I said, "Why would I be an enemy agent? Y'know what a real enemy agent would do? Climb the freaking wall, not ask permission to get in the gate. And enemy agents have standards too, so they would at least have the sense to not wait around in the snow in the dead of winter."

The male agent wasn't bothered by my protest. In a robotic voice, he recited, "You will not be allowed inside of school campus unless you have permission."

What. A. Moron. But he was a moron who had the ability to let me in the gate, so I held back a few insults and turned away from him. The principal showed up a few minutes later, crabby and nursing a steaming mug. His hair was a piece of work. It looked like a diseased rat had thrown up, been run over by a truck, and died on his head. I watched him distastefully while he stumbled through the snow in his wet bunny slippers, cursing a few times as he ran over a bush.

"Was this really necessary?" I heard him ask the agent escorting him. "I already told you, there _is_ supposed to be a girl. I was _asleep…_ "

"Sir, we only need a confirmation."

" _Only_ a confirmation," the Principal grumbled, "If you needed _only_ a confirmation and you felt the need to wake me up while I was getting my beauty sleep…"

But he took a look at me. His eyes passed over my rugged appearance. He showed absolutely no recognition of me, but he nodded an affirmation tiredly. "Yes, that's her. Let her in, and I can finally enjoy my night's rest." I had a feeling he only said yes to go back to sleep, because the next thing he did was turn away and started going back in the direction of the school.

"Are you sure, sir?" the male agent behind the gate asked, looking at me uneasily. I made a face at him, like _I told you so_.

"Yes, I'm sure!" came his crabby reply. "Do you think I would tell you I was sure of my decisions if I wasn't sure of my decisions? I'm the principal, for goodness sake, not a moron!"

 _Though it wouldn't be that far of a stretch,_ I thought.

The male agent opened the gate for me, and I trudged through the snow with zero enthusiasm. I caught up with the Principal, who was still muttering (ironically) about incompetent agents and why he didn't he just fire himself if it came to a good night's sleep. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he started so badly I thought he'd gotten a seizure.

His arms flailed out. "Help! Help! I'm being attacked!" he screamed, before his eyes focused on me and he glared at me like this was all my fault. "You _are_ an enemy agent!"

"No, I was just wondering where my dorm was."

"Oh," The Principal said without even a remotely sheepish expression. His previous attitude returned. "I don't know. I think I lost the email about you in my Inbox. To be honest, I don't really know how the stupid thing works," he said, more to himself than me. "But I think now that Ripley's gone back to his room, you can have the Box."

I reminded myself I wasn't supposed to know the name "Ripley" yet. "What's the Box?"

"Oh, it's a...very secure location," The Principal said, trying to hide the fact that it was actually supposed to be used as a punishment. "For students who don't want to be disturbed. And you look like someone who would prefer quiet over the loud noises they make in the dorms...yes, that was rather thoughtful of me, wasn't it?"

Not really. "I guess."

"Good. I'll trust as a to-be spy, you can find the Box yourself. In fact, have those guards escort you there or something. Your initiation will be in the morning." The Principal attempted to give me a fatherly pat on the back. I stepped back quickly, mostly out of instinct, and his hand grasped thin air. He frowned a little and muttered, "The sleep's getting to me…"

He started walking away from me. I waited until he was out of hearing range to activate the radio transmitter in my ear. It was disguised as a hearing aid, so that it wouldn't be given any suspicion. I trailed behind the Principal, thirty feet of space between us.

" _Charlotte?"_ Joshua's voice crackled in my ear.

"Don't call me Charlotte," I said without moving my mouth.

" _If our technology is overridden-which it won't, but it never hurts to be careful-the CIA will just assume I'm talking to plain old 'Charlotte' instead of a deadly SPYDER agent."_

He had a point, but there was no way I would admit that to him. "I meant, I'm going with Charlie instead of Charlotte."

" _What? Charlie is a boy's name."_

I rolled my eyes, even though I knew he couldn't see me. "You need to get on the Internet more, Hallal. Charlie is unisex. Plus, everyone has a nickname. Being plain old 'Charlotte' is lame."

I could hear his sigh through the transmitter. " _Fine. Whatever, go by Charlotte or Charlie, I don't care either way. Just make sure you don't screw up your mission."_

"I _know_. You told me ten times already. Where's the Box?"

" _Haven't you been paying attention when I told you?"_

"Most of the time when you talk all I hear is 'blah blah blah'. Stop complaining and just tell me the location."

He told me the location. I navigated my way to the Box, while hearing his unnecessary comments along the way, such as "What's taking so long?" and "You should have been there already". I ignored him. When I finally got to the Box, I saw a guard with a goatee was stationed at the entrance with an expression that said, _I need coffee._

I told Joshua, "I'm at the entrance. Keep quiet."

" _Roger."_

The guard's eyes sharpened when they caught sight of me, and he instantly snapped to attention. "What is your business here?"

He sounded like a medieval knight. I could just imagine him clanking around in armor. "Uh, the principal said that I could stay in the Box because the dorms are full. I'm a new recruit," I added.

He studied me with narrowed eyes for a long time. "You're too old to be a new recruit."

I stared him down. I was tired, cold, irritated, and not in the mood to be interrogated. "I'm a special case, 'kay? A new spot opened, and I'm filling it. So just budge up and open the freaking door."

"I ought to call the principal to confirm." His hand reached toward his radio.

"Do what you like, but the principal's already been disturbed tonight when he came to the gates to confirm it was me. He's already done that. He's probably asleep in his office, and not wanting to be disturbed. I bet if you called him right now, he'd be upset enough to fire you on the spot."

The guard's fear of getting fired overrode his wariness of me, because he moved aside and opened the gate, all the while staring at me with as much skepticism as he could. The moment he opened the door, a bunch of lasers stood in my way. I turned to look back at the guard, gesturing to the traps.

"Could you-"

"Oh, right." He shuffled to a patch of wall on the side. He shielded it from me as I guessed he typed in a code. A beep sounded from the patch of wall, and a secret entrance under the floor opened up.

"Fancy," I said. I waved a little to the guard. "Well, I guess I'll be on my way. Have fun keeping watch."

The guard grunted an unintelligible response.

I descended the stairs, which lead to a dark room. I heard the secret entrance close behind me and started. My heart jumped a few beats. I was never a fan of darkness, and I felt trapped, with four walls made of steel surrounding me and no way out.

" _Charlotte,"_ Joshua's voice in my ear made me jump. " _Don't speak to me. There are seven security cameras in the room."_

"I _know_ that," I said, and covered up the noise by accidentally-on-purpose tripping over a table.

" _Don't talk to me."_ He repeated. " _This is the extent of my help. You're on your own from this moment. You have to destroy the earpiece. Remember your mission. Don't let anything distract you. Don't let-"_

I disconnected from the earpiece, yanking it out of my ear. I threw it on the floor and stomped on it before he could tell me to not let my loyalties drift.

Now, where was the lamp? I fumbled around in the darkness before touching a table and a lamp beside it. I flicked on the light switch and it glowed to life, casting a warm glow upon the inside of the Box. I spotted some textbooks on the floor and a bed. I was too tired to do anything else, so I just fell onto the mattress and tried to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3: The Erica Hale table

_CIA Academy of Espionage (duh)_

 _The Box_

 _0605 hours_

Sleep was rough. I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling. The mattress felt like I was lying on a pile of rocks, and it squeaked every time I turned. Thoughts raced through my head, overlapping over one another. Eventually I drifted off to a rocky sleep.

I woke with a start, everything coming into focus slowly. I glanced to the alarm clock on the nightstand. The time blinked back at me. It was apparently 8:21 pm, late into the evening. But that couldn't be right. I turned on the lamp. I hadn't bothered to change since last night. I rummaged around in my backpack until I found a new pair of jeans and a plain white shirt.

Dressing quickly, I rolled out of the squeaky mattress. As soon as my toes touched the floor, I recoiled. It was _freezing_. Didn't they have a heater down in the Box? I dismissed the thought. If the CIA was as cheap as Joshua claimed, it was unlikely. I hadn't thought to bring a winter coat. I still had the sweatshirt from last night, so I put that on. To protect my feet from the floor, I shoved my feet in combat boots.

 _Food,_ my stomach growled.

"Stop complaining," I told it. Then I scarfed down a Snickers bar, because to be honest, it _had_ been a long time since I had given Joshua my strawberry sundae.

I grabbed a ballpoint pen and a notebook from my backpack. I ripped out a new page and scribbled down:

 _To-Do:_

 _Get new room (the Box sucks)_

 _Familiarize yourself with surroundings_

 _Delete embarrassing thing from comp_

 _Make friends_

 _Goal of the month: Shoot the bullseye_

 _(IMPORTANT: Avoid ex)_

I reread my list. From an outsider's perspective, it looked like a normal to-do list. No one would be able to figure out that I was a SPYDER agent by reading it. I stuffed it deep into my backpack anyway. Since the Box had no windows(duh), I had no way to tell what time it was. I faintly remembered the Principal telling me that my initiation was in the morning. Whatever that meant.

As I recalled, the Principal wasn't very happy when people interrupted his "beauty sleep". Oh, well. All the more reason to get initiated.

So how did I get out of the Box? I wished that I had listened to Joshua when he gave me a five hour lecture about the Academy of Espionage.

"Hey, security camera." I glanced to one of them. I could barely make out a black piece of technology, celevery hidden in one of the dark shadows in the Box. "How do I get out of this place?"

They did not respond.

"Thanks. That was real helpful."

I approached the door that had led to the staircase that lead to the entrance. I studied it for a few moments. How was I supposed to open the freaking door? I shrugged. Screw it, banging on it couldn't do any harm. I slammed the heel my hand onto the place where the door met the wall. After a few forceful attempts, it popped open.

"Seriously?" I stared at the door in disbelief, shocked that that had worked. "Not a very good defense system, to be honest."

Ten minutes later, after getting lost frequently around campus, I finally arrived at the Nathan-something Building. I was being frisked by two sleepy security agents, who had just awoken to guard the Principal's office. They were moving at glacial pace. One of them took out a walkie talkie and mumbled something in it. The doors opened to show a very disgruntled Principal standing there in a ratty old bathrobe. Foam was covering most of his chin, suggesting that he'd been in the middle of his bathroom activities when he had came out. He also had no toupee, which was a horrifying sight, because his head was bald in some places and held tufts of brown hair in others.

"Wha' yer here fo'?" he asked through a mouthful of toothpaste.

So far, my impression of the Principal wasn't very high.

"To get my schedule. And a new dorm. But, uh. Do you need a moment to…" I mimed brushing my teeth, hiding a smirk.

"That would be grand," he said, closing the doors. The agents who had frisked me were trying to hide their snorts with difficulty.

I waited for five minutes before the principal opened the doors again, now dressed in different clothes, although there were still traces of toothpaste on his chin. His toupee was newly styled on his head. It looked equally hideous as he had the last night.

"What was your name again, newbie?"

I blanked for a moment. "Um. Charlotte."

"Last name, too?" He raised a lofty eyebrow at me, the nerve.

It came to me suddenly. "Oh. Charlotte...Anderson. But I prefer Charlie."

The Principal gave me a very suspicious look, but I doubted that he actually felt skeptical. More like he wanted to showcast how intimidating he could be. (It wasn't a very good method, because he looked less intimidating than a piece of laundry.) After a long and dramatic pause, he shoved a map of the campus into my hands, a schedule, and a key to my dorm room. He also lectured me on a bajillion of the the school rules, which I proceeded to ignore and study the map. His voice was easy to ignore, mostly because he kept on trailing off and then startling awake at random intervals.

He ultimately dismissed me with a "Breakfast is in thirty minutes, in the Mess."

"The Mess?" I asked. He slammed the door in my face.

"Oh-kay." I said.

* * *

I found the Mess easily. It was the cafeteria. The food, as I'd expected, wasn't good enough to earn a half of a star. It looked like something a cat would have thrown up. It came with a carton of orange juice, which I was the only thing I touched.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to enjoy my barely-a-one-star-meal in peace. From the moment I took a seat(at the only empty table), everyone had gone silent. Every pair of eyes was staring at me like I had just insulted their grandmother. After a bit, a few people had returned to their meals, but a few people gave me fearful looks now and then. I wasn't sure if it was because I was just the new kid, or they just all decided they hated me.

It made it impossible to sneak a peek at Ben Ripley, who I was pretty sure was sitting at the table to the left of me.

"What?" I snapped at one of them, and they looked away quickly.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was a girl with scared brown eyes and a mass of dark hair hanging to her shoulders. She was skinnier than a pencil.

"Why is everyone staring at me?" I asked her.

The girl glanced around and lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. "Dude, you're sitting at Erica Hale's table."

The name struck a chord in my mind. Erica Hale. The ex-girlfriend. Great. My first day in Spy School and I'd already failed the most important thing. Well, it was too late to take it back now.

"And what?" I challenged.

She glanced around again. "I get you're a newbie and all, but Erica always sits at this table."

"And?"

She rolled her eyes like I was purposely being stupid. " _And_ , you don't want to piss off Erica Hale."

I shrugged. "It's flattering that you're so concerned by my well-being, but I think I'm good."

Suddenly, the girl's eyes flickered up and fear flitted across her face. She made an undignified yelp and scampered away. I turned around. I assumed the girl who had spoken was Erica Hale. Joshua's description of her didn't do her justice. I normally can't tell who's "hot" and who's not, but Erica was definitely beautiful. Raven hair, ice blue eyes, and perfect skin. She stared into my eyes with smoldering blue eyes. I didn't flinch, studying my breakfast intently.

After a few beats of silence, I sighed and looked up. "Are you gonna sit down, or just stare at me all day?"

Every single pair of eyes was on me. No one dared to breath. The atmosphere was so tense that you could literally cut it with a knife. Everyone watched Erica Hale, wondering what she would do to make an example of the newbie. The pencil-skinny girl widened her eyes at me alarmingly, a message that said: _WHAT ARE YOU DOING?_

"Okay, standing there is cool too." I shrugged. "I don't judge."

She didn't say anything, just slammed her salad down at the table and sat down with an icy made-of-stone expression. She took out a book and began reading, completely ignoring me. Everyone gradually returned to their separate conversations, giving me an uneasy look once in a while, like Erica was going to snap and stab me any second.

I took another sip of orange juice and mentally high-fived myself. Project Avoid-the-Ex-Girlfriend had flown out the window, but Erica hadn't decapitated me or anything, so I'd say I was doing spectacularly.


	4. Chapter 4: Paintball War and New Friends

**Hey! I'm back. Charlie gets some new friends in this chapter! Also, Disclaimer, I don't own Spy School, blah blah blah.**

 **Now to respond to a few reviews.**

 **Anonymous: I HAVE RESPONDED! First of all, thank you for the awesome feedback and long review. I will clarify some of your questions.**  
 **1\. There won't be any Barlie in this fanfiction. Mostly because it's not a very good ship name, but also because I suck at writing romantic stuff.  
2\. I will probably be adding in Benrica, and I'll try to make Erica sound not too OOC.  
3\. And I don't hate Erica. She's my favorite character in the Spy School series. It's also really hard to write her reactions and personality and stuff because she's so hard to read.**

 **Logically Speaking: That was so nice! Thank you so much for the invitation. And that review literally made my day. I actually read your fanfic, and I thought it was awesome. Thank you again and great job!**

 **THANK YOU EVERYONE YOU'RE AMAZING.**

 **Enjoy...**

* * *

 _CIA A of E_

 _The War Zone AKA the Field_

 _After Breakfast_

I was sitting on the branch of one of the trees on the edge of the field, looking down on the paintball war raging on below me. I was on the "red" team, so my gun was filled with red paintballs. I had only shot a few of them. I had spent most of the game up on the tree, sniping random blue people.

I was surprised none of them had noticed me yet. I was half concealed by a hanging branch, but if anyone looked carefully, they'd see a my legs dangling from the branch. But whatever, I wasn't complaining. The war had been going on for about three hours. The "morgue" was filled with blue and red splattered teenage spies.

I watched as our canon fired a huge amount of red paint. People on the other side scrambled to get out of the way. A group standing right in the middle got drenched in red paint. Even though I was on the opposite team, I winced a little. Paint was no fun to get out of your hair. They turned and yelled at our base, waving their fists angrily.

I squinted toward the field and made out Ripley's brown hair, along with a few of his friends. They were the blue team, and not too far from me. I grasped my gun with one hand, not even bothering to aim, and fired two "bullets". One of the paintballs smashed into their head, splattering it with bright red paint. The other pegged the one standing next to Ripley. They whirled around, looking for the source the paintball was coming from, and after finding nothing, decided to go to the morgue.

Ripley's head turned back and forth nervously like a bobblehead. His gaze scoped the trees, landing on my tree. He saw my booted feet swinging from the branch. I leaned sideways so that my face was clearly visible, and waved with my fingers. His eyes widened in realization and he spoke urgently to one of his friends.

I jumped down from the tree. I landed squarely on my feet. It was time for some action.

I spotted a blue group, conversing in not-so-subtle voices. I crouched behind a bush and fired a burst of paintballs, nailing every single spot I aimed. I heard loud exclamations from where they stood, confirming my shot. I darted away before they could see me, creeping to a place closer to the red base.

I saw Ripley again, trying his best to be subtle. He needed practice at that. On first glance, he seemed to be alone, but there was movement next to him. I tilted my head, and realized that there was another person with him, just so heavily camouflaged that he seemed to be one with the snow.

I fired at the camouflaged guy. He jumped at the sound. Despite his pathetic attempts to dodge the paintball, a random splatter of red paint caught his face. I'll give him this; he was so good at camouflaging himself, it looked like the red paint was just floating in the air.

"Hey!" Camouflaged guy pointed at me. "She's right there!"

I wasn't really hiding. In fact, I was just standing right out in the open. In retrospect, this probably wasn't the best idea. Ripley raised his gun to shoot. To my surprise, he shot...

And missed me by a mile and a half.

I raised my eyebrows. "Nice shot."

He colored a little. "Aren't you new?"

"Aren't you observant." I fired off a paintball that splattered his gun with red. His scope was completely covered with red paint. "I'll be generous and give you five seconds to run."

I expected him to start running, but he stood his ground. I frowned, wondering what his tactic was. I pointed my gun at him and shot.

Then someone barreled into him, knocking Ripley out of the way. I heard four gunshots and ducked on instinct, dropping into a somersault just in time. Four gunshots splattered the ground where I'd previously been standing. My head flicked up, and I saw Erica Hale standing next to a fallen Ben Ripley, whose eyes were wide. I shot him in the chest.

He didn't go to the morgue, though. He just laid there, his attention flickering from Erica to me.

Erica noticed the red on his chest. "After I just threw you out of the way, you get shot again?"

He looked mildly offended. "She surprised me!"

"She's a newbie."

Erica looked calm to the point where she was nearly bored. Her face showed zero emotion as she ran toward me, firing another round while she was doing it. I dodged all of them and responded with more paintballs. I was a really good shot, but Erica Hale was a _really_ good shot, as much as I hated to admit it. I'd seen her skills while I was sitting on that tree.

One of her bullets grazed my shoulder, leaving a smear of blue paint. At the edge of my peripheral vision, I saw my fellow red teammates staring at me behind bushes and forts. A few of them had stopped in their tracks to watch us.

It was like routine. Shoot, dodge. Shoot, dodge. I pretended like we were in SPYDER's old training room. I tuned out the gunfire and focused solely on my target. Red paintballs were also coming toward Erica from around us. A few of my teammates were shooting back! That victory only lasted seconds, because without even sparing them a glance, Erica shot bullets at them, which managed to hit them on a spare body part that wasn't as concealed as the rest of them.

The entire paintball war had stopped to watch Erica and I fire at each other. Some were staring at me, impressed, and others were yelling things like "Get her, Hale!" and "C'mon, Erica!" Even the professors were noticing us, frowning. Erica herself wasn't so calm anymore. She was frowning the tiniest bit, wondering why I wasn't dead yet. My guess was that she'd never had a battle that had lasted this long.

In the middle of our fight, I tried another tactic. I stopped shooting at her and decided to run at her, full sprint. There were a few moments of silence where Erica's bullets rang out loudly. She had to run out eventually, right? I ran in zigzag patterns, sometimes slowing to let a paintball whiz right before my face and speeding up again to dodge one right behind me. I was a fast runner.

In the middle of our mini-war, I realized that I was grinning. I hadn't had this much fun in a _long_ time.

Erica was growing nearer. There were only a few feet between us. One of her bullets caught me on the knee, making me stumble, but not enough to get me in the morgue. Everything happened in slow motion, like that moment in a movie where the hero is defeating the villain.

Her eyes were narrowed, wondering what my tactic was. A few feet away, I launched myself at her. Her gun fired once, twice. I was close enough. My arm stretched out, knocking the gun from her fingertips. I leveled the gun at her and shot. I thought it would be the end, but she just tilted her head to the side and it went right past.

Suddenly her fist was inches away from my face, not slow enough for me to dodge it. It connected with a loud CRACK and I crumpled to the ground.

* * *

 _CIA A of E_

 _In a Boring Class_

 _1500 hours_

I was still nursing my broken nose when we got to class. The Professor was a balding old man who said his name in a raspy old voice and made me introduce myself to the class like we were in second grade.

"I'm Charlie Anderson." I said, feeling really stupid, "And I transferred here yesterday." I sat down quickly.

The classroom wasn't an actual classroom. It was a sprawl of chairs full of fourteen year olds facing a stage, where Professor Old Guy droned on and on about different types of bombs, the different types of wires, and when he was our age he was learning actual spy stuff and not defusing bombs, because no one who had sense would think about defusing a bomb. I figured he hated his job.

I was in the middle of drifting off when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around. "What do you want?"

Sitting behind me, was a pretty handsome guy. He had styled brown hair, dark brown eyes, a sharp jawline, and muscles that strained against his expensive jacket. He looked like the stereotypical high school jock slash bully. He grinned at me, teeth that should have came with a warning sign. WARNING: DANGER OF GETTING BLINDED!

"Hey," he said quietly, "You're the new kid?"

Why did everyone keep on saying that to me?

"What gave it away?" I asked sarcastically, "The fact that I just introduced myself in front of the class or that you've never seen me before?"

"I'm Chip. You're Charlie, right?"

I looked at him suspiciously. "Duh."

"Well, that was pretty impressive, what you did with Ice Queen back on the paintball war." Chip studied me like he was evaluating me. "You know, those were your SACSAs, right? Combat and…" He frowned like he was trying to remember the acronym. "No, wait. Survival and combat something assessments."

"Survival and combat skills assessment," I told him.

"Right. Anyway, that was pretty cool."

I shrugged. "No, it wasn't. She knocked me out." I pointed to my still-bleeding nose.

Another voice beside me said, "Actually, it was impressive that you survived that long. I think you set a record."

I turned around. The speaker was a girl with huge green eyes and black hair hanging to her shoulders. She stuck out her hand at me. "I'm Zoe. No one's survived against the Ice Queen for more than thirty seconds." She was one of Ripley's friends. I looked at her with a renewed interest. Could she help me get close to him?

"Charlie." I shook her hand. "Why do you call her the Ice Queen?"

Chip snorted. "'Cause she's an Ice Queen. Can't you tell? Plus, Zoe here likes giving everyone nicknames."

"A bleeding nose is nothing to be ashamed of. Erica's done worse to everyone at Spy School. She's knocked out everyone at least once. She's a prodigy. Her family's been sniping people since the Cold War."

I couldn't help but be amused. Zoe was speaking about Erica like she was some kind of legend. Or an alien. Someone who could be gossiped about.

Zoe leaned at me, those unblinking green eyes kind of creepy. "We don't get a lot of new third year kids here. But the CIA clearly had some reason to let you in, if you were good enough to nearly beat Ice Queen."

She suddenly froze. "Wait. Were you the person who kept on sniping us?"

"I was up in a tree for the most part of the battle," I admitted. "It was easier to take out people when they can't see you."

Chip grinned. "See? That is impressive."

Our conversation was attracting attention. Someone sitting next to Zoe leaned over. " _You_ were the one in the tree?"

I recognized it. It was the Camouflage Kid. "Yeah, that was me."

"Hey! You took me out!" He looked indignant.

"Wasn't personal, Camo Kid. Just a game."

"But you-"

"Anyway," Chip said, drawing my attention back to him, "You seem like a pretty smart person to me." His eyes lit up like he'd just came up with an idea. "Hey, I hear you're a good hacker."

I remembered that one of my abilities was supposed to be hacking. "How'd you know that?"

He smiled in a way that was clearly supposed to be mysterious. "I'm a spy. We have a way of figuring out things."

"In other words," Zoe told me, "He was eavesdropping on the principal and found out that you were supposed to be some kind of expert hacker." She paused. "Is it true?"

"True enough. Why?"

Chip lowered his voice. "I guess now that we're friends, maybe you could hack into the principal's computer for me."

Zoe glared at him. "Don't do it, Charlie. He's trying to-"

"See, I've been having a little trouble with my Algebra class," Chip ignored Zoe, his voice completely innocent, "All you have to do is get into the grading system and change my grades. A hacker as talented as you should have it easy as pie."

Zoe rolled her eyes. "She's not going to fall for that, Chip. No one can hack into the principal's office."

"Sure, I'll do it."

Zoe and Chip's heads turned to me in unison. Zoe's face was horrified, but Chip's was smirking in victory. I shrugged a little, enjoying the surprise on their faces.

"Really?"

I was supposed to delete the files of SPYDER from the computer as well. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. Plus, Chip seemed like a handy guy to have as an ally. "Why the hell not?"

"Because it's dangerous." Zoe warned me, "If you get caught, you could get expelled."

"It'll be fun. But what do I get in return?"

Chip thought about it. "If you do it, I _won't_ punch you in the face."

"Not good enough." I shook my head. "How about, if I hack into the computer, you have to owe me a debt. If I ask you to do something, you have to do it."

"Whatever. Just don't rat me out." His eyes turned dangerous. "If you do-"

"There will be severe consequences. All right, I get it."

Professor Old Man yelled at us, "No talking during class!" The rest of my classmates snapped to attention, showing no sign of talking to me earlier.

* * *

 **Any suggestions? Questions? Comments? I love reviews.**


	5. Chapter 5: Meeting humans is exhausting

**Guys...I just want to say that telling me to "update already" will not persuade me to update faster. It's kinda rude. Sorry if you think that I'm being overly sensitive or something, but it is to me.**

 **And if you are going to do that, just give me some feedback while you're at it. To all of the friendly reviewers out there, thank you.**

 **I don't own Stuart Gibbs.**

* * *

The Mess

1800 hours

Dinner took place after my algebra class, where I had traced out a route to the principal's office without being seen by the security cameras. The meal was nearly as bad as breakfast. Today they were serving mac 'n cheese. It was a good thing they'd put labels on the types of food, since all of it looked like unidentifiable muck. The mac' n cheese was oddly hard. It hadn't so much as moved a millimeter, even as I tilted my tray sideways.

Zoe invited me to sit with her and her group of friends. This gave me a chance to get to know Ben and his friends better and had the added advantage of not having to sit with Erica Hale again (I had at lunch, and it had been as entertaining as seating next to a piece of concrete), so I accepted.

"Everyone, this is Charlie," Zoe introduced me, "Charlie, this is Ben, Warren, Mike, and Chip."

I waved lamely. "Hey."

Chip cocked his head at me. "You didn't need to introduce _me_ to her. She already knows to I am."

Zoe rolled her eyes. "Well duh, but it's customary to introduce everyone."

Chip fixed his eyes on me. "You're already pretty famous around here. First, you dare to sit in Erica Hale's table. Then, not only do you go neck-to-neck against her in the paintball war, you actually _nearly defeat_ Ice Queen. And in Tomey's class, you actually blew a hole through the bullseye."

I flopped down on the bench. I smiled my best nonchalant smile. "All in a day's work."

Zoe leaned forward in her seat. "Everyone's saying that you mouthed off in Professor Martin's class."

A boy sitting next to Ben-who Zoe had introduced as "Mike"- flashed a wolfish grin at me. "Nice! You're a new recruit, huh?"

I thought about it. "Basically."

"Sweet! Me too. I was accepted, like, two months ago."

"Really?" I scrutinized him. I recognized him from numerous SPYDER reports. Mike B-something. He'd helped Ben out on some of his missions and had been partly instrumental on sabotaging Project Golden Fist. "I haven't seen you in any of my classes."

"Oh, that's because I had to start off as a newbie. I guess they picked you because you're good enough to be in your third year. What's your story?"

"I'm a hacker," I said smoothly, "I guess the CIA just found out one day. This random guy just came up to my doorstep one day. He told me about the CIA, blah blah blah, next thing I know I'm at Spy School. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that I'm not bad with a gun."

"Where'd you learn to fight like that?" Chip asked.

"My uncle taught me. He was a karate master." I made a mental note. _Remember that you have an uncle who knows karate._

"It was that simple?" Ben raised his eyebrows at me. He seemed to be suspicious. "The CIA just showed up at your door and you said, 'Sure'?"

"Yeah, pretty much. Spying sounded way more exciting than my boring old life. I just said, 'Sure'."

Mike grinned easily. "I got in because I helped out Ben on a mission once. It was super awesome."

"Smokescreen has been on more missions than average spies-in-training would go through in an entire schooling," Zoe chimed in, beaming at Ben, "We call him Smokescreen because at first, he was pretending to be horrible at espionage to make everyone drop their guard and underestimate him."

Warren, the Camouflage Kid, was looking on bitterly. "He's not that great," he muttered under his breath, "He messed up once, remember?"

No one paid attention to him.

But by the pink tinting Ripley's cheeks, I guessed that most of the "pretending" was less of an Oscar-worthy performance and more of actual incompetence. Still, I gave him points for managing to fool everyone else. Zoe seemed to either not notice or just pass this off as humble embarrassment. Her voice took on a different tone when she spoke about Ben. There was admiration and affection and pride, and her eyes were all...glowy. Zoe had a crush.

I gave him an amused half-smile. "That so?"

He ducked his head and was about to respond when Zoe interrupted. "You should see him in action! In his first year, he discovered a mole from SPYDER. They even tried to recruit him once-"

Ben coughed and said a few words under his breath that I wasn't supposed to hear. "Um, Zoe, that's supposed to be classified."

Now she blushed. "Right. Important info."

"SPYDER?" I asked, "What's that, a code word?"

Asking questions about SPYDER might seem suspicious. But at the same time, it could be pretty suspicious _not_ to ask about SPYDER. I needed to tread carefully.

"It's a secret evil spy agency," Chip told me.

Everyone at the table hissed, "Chip!"

"Chip!" Warren said afterward, a little late.

"What?" He looked around. "Was that supposed to be secret? 'Cause we already let it slip."

Warren spoke up touchily. "That's not the point. We can't just go around telling every new recruit about SPYDER."

" _You_ know about SPYDER," I pointed out, "Why's that?"

Everyone glanced around as if debating how much to tell me. Chip puffed out his chest a little. "We were once instrumental to defeating SPYDER's plans. We helped in saving the president's life. Alexander Hale lead us. He might've been a fraud, but he did take out a dozen SPYDER agents single handedly on that mission, which was pretty cool."

"And I camouflaged everyone," added Warren.

I remembered that mission. It was the one that got Joshua all beat up. I winced a little at the memory. He'd been furious at Murray for weeks.

A moment of silence fell among the group until Zoe perked up. "Hey Ben, did you know Charlie was the sniper taking us out?"

Warren muttered, "She shot me in the head," under his breath. Ah, so he was still bitter about that.

Ripley nodded. "She shot me as well."

"You and Ice Queen seemed to be pretty buddy-buddy by the looks of it," I remembered. "She pushed you out of the way."

"We teamed up." He was definitely blushing now. "She's helped me out on missions a few times."

Chip snickered. "Ben's got a crush the size of Mount Everest."

"So does most of the male population," Ben pointed out in his defense.

"Really?" I asked. "She doesn't strike me as the relationship type."

"Ice Queen's not really sociable," Zoe agreed with me, and snuck a glance at said Ice Queen. I looked that way as well. Erica Hale was seated at the same table, reading from a thick textbook and forking salad into her mouth. She seemed to be completely absorbed into reading the book, but I saw her eyes flickering from one end to the other, and guessed that she was discreetly stealing glances at other people.

"But she's hot," Chip continued, "And not to mention, a legacy."

"Technically, as an Ice Queen, she'd be cold," Warren thought, frowning a little in thought.

"It's an expression, Chameleon," Mike scoffed. "Duh."

"She knows everything. She probably knows that we're talking about her right now."

"That's creepy." I said, "Isn't that, like, stalking?"

Chip stopped to think about it. "Huh. Sort of."

I glanced back at my tray, poking at the slop. "Is this food even edible?"

"The CIA is trying to improve our immune system," Warren said.

Ben shook his head and took a bite of his mac 'n cheese, only wincing a little. "No, the Principal's just really cheap. But unless you'd prefer to starve, this is the food we've got."

Chip waved his fork at me. "Don't worry, Charlie. There's more to the CIA than crappy food. Plus, if you hold your nose and pretend it's cheeseburger, it's not half bad." He held his nose and swallowed. "See? Piece of cake."

"Actually, it's not a-"

"Shut up, Chameleon," Chip swiped at Warren's head menacingly, predicting what he was going to say, "I know it's not really cake. It's an expression."

I took a cautious bite and spat it right back out. I shoved my tray away. "Forget this, I'd prefer starving to death."

"There's dessert afterward," Zoe tried.

I perked up instantly. "I don't suppose they serve ice cream?"

"Actually...no."

I slumped back. The talk around the table turned to classes. It turned out, attending a top-secret CIA school did nothing to change the fact that students gossiped about the teachers. I found this a good time to observe Ben Ripley. Ben and his friends were...normal. Surprisingly. There was absolutely nothing menacing or evil about Ben.

Which was expected, because he was supposedly one of the "good guys". I thought about how different friends were in the CIA than in SPYDER. I had no "friends" at SPYDER, only alliances. Joshua, although he could be infuriating at times, was as close as a friend I had at SPYDER. That wasn't a compliment, far from it.

I had no friends. I was taught how to act like a normal teenager and interact with people. On my missions, I did a good job of convincing people. That's why SPYDER made me a reliable asset. There was little chance that I would turn, considering my past and my loyalty to SPYDER. I had no links to anyone. I was inconspicuous in a crowd, as a teenager. I was good at infiltrating buildings where adults couldn't go. I could fit into tight spaces, such as ceiling vents and eavesdrop on conversations.

That was how SPYDER operated. No ties, no disloyalty, no weak links. Once they get the slightest suspicion that you're working against them, that's it. POOF, and you're out. If they're having a good day, maybe you'll be let off with a promise of death if you keep your lips zipped. Most of the time, traitors are tortured for hours on end and finally killed. It's all done in a random dark cell in the middle of an underground network, so there's no chance of escaping. I know all of this because Joshua took me there once on a "field trip". I suspected that was SPYDER's idea of a warning.

Even though it's a risky and dangerous life, I couldn't imagine another life without SPYDER in it. I knew all of this, and SPYDER's agents knew I knew all of this. In SPYDER, I wasn't treated like a child. I was treated like one of the agents, and given respect, and responsibility that in the real world, no one would give me.

The CIA operated differently. They had an actual school for their young agents. No one was given special treatment. That was wrong, in my mind. There was plenty of opportunity and time for them to turn onto the enemy side. Still, seeing Ben and his friends laugh as Warren accidently spilled his milk all over himself gave me a weird feeling. A feeling I couldn't place, but it tugged at my heart and made me feel...longing.

But that couldn't be right. My loyalties were to SPYDER, and SPYDER only. I shook my head, clearing my thoughts. I couldn't be questioning these things if I was going to hack into the CIA database tonight.

"Oh, yeah," Chip said suddenly, giving me a side eye, "Charlie's also a computer genius." A wicked grin. "She's going to ha-"

I stomped on his foot. A noise like the air being pushed out of a helium balloon escaped Chip's mouth. My eyes communicated as well as my mouth could: _Yeah, shout it out loud for the entire world to hear, would you?_

" _Help,_ " Chip amended quickly, "She's gonna help me with my hacking." In my head, I cursed his lying.

Ben raised an eyebrow like he didn't believe us.

"You don't believe me, Ripley?" Chip scowled at him, and Ben shook his head.

"No, it could be true. But I'd be more willing to believe that you convinced Charlie to hack into the principal's computer and change your grades."

I frowned at that. Chip hadn't _persuaded_ me. I had agreed on my own account. But I didn't say it out loud because that would be outright admitting the plan. I wouldn't have bothered doing that if I knew that two seconds later, Zoe was going to say:

"Yeah! That's exactly what he did."

I rolled my eyes so hard they trembled. "Zoe…"

"Huh? Oh. Yeah…" she said with a somewhat sheepish expression.

Warren was staring, mouth agape. "YOU'RE GOING TO-"

Chip had his hand covering Warren's mouth. "Shut up, shut up. If you say another word, you'll be dead before lights out."

"You can't," Warren said after Chip released him, in a significantly lower tone, "It's against the rules."

"No, it's not," Mike countered, "You just have to be sneaky enough. Isn't our gym teacher, whatshisface, always telling us we need to think outside of the box?"

Chip gave Mike and approving nod. "Exactly."

"But, but, you, you can't just-" Warren spluttered.

"Now you get it," Chip put an arm around him, squeezing tight enough for Warren to wince, "Glad you're in on this with us, Chameleon."

Zoe looked disapproving, but not like she was going to argue. Ben, meanwhile, was looking the opposite.

"Charlie, you're new around here and all, but it's not that simple. There are lots of security cameras you need to bypass, and you need to be careful with your fingerprints, and-"

"I want to do it. I'm doing it."

He looked at me for a long moment. I had a feeling he was evaluating me and narrowed my eyes at him. I didn't like being judged. Just when I was about to tell him to quit it, he leaned closer and whispered, "The principal's passwords are written on the inside of a cover of a dictionary he keeps on a shelf."

I looked at him, surprised. "Okay." But was it a trick? Why would he tell me that?

Well, I wasn't protesting. He had just saved me a lot of time. I felt a temporary burst of guilt for using his information to complete a mission in which I would ultimately kill him, but it only lasted a few seconds.

I had a mission to finish.


	6. Chapter 6: Doing mission stuff

**First, response to a review:**

 **Anonymous: Thanks for all of the nice reviews. They're not cringy at all, in fact I really appreciate them because they're honest and stuff. You are a nice person, so here's some virtual chocolate cake.**

 **Second, updates are not going to be as fast as they were in the summer(or just somewhat fast, depending on your definition of speed). Because a) writing is a long process, b) school, and c) I have another fanfic I also have to update from time to time. So yeah, just wanted to say that.**

 **Anyway, enjoy this chapter.**

* * *

 _The Box(but not for long)_

 _2300 hours_

I had gone to the principal's office after dinner, who had _not_ been happy to see me. I had been able to persuade him into getting me a new dorm room. Once I had seen the inside, I immediately regretted it. The CIA was cheap as hell. The shower water was only a few degrees warmer than freezing. The bathroom was crowded with people clamoring for a turn. The mattress was the equivalent of sleeping on concrete. In other words, it was worse than the Box. And the Box was basically a windowless, dark, heavily fortified piece of junk.

I actually found myself a little homesick. SPYDER had treated their minor agents better. _Much_ better. To my horror, I realized that I actually missed strawberry sundaes. But as bad as my living quarters, I had withstood worse sleeping conditions. I knew full well that this was nothing compared to some things. That didn't mean I had to like it.

One memorable time, SPYDER had sent me in a tropical jungle, to blow up an rival agency base. I had the mission done in a few weeks, but that had easily been the longest, worst weeks of my life.

Rock hard mattress aside, I had finally manage to drift off to a rocky slumber for approximately thirty seconds before the alarm on my watch went crazy next to my ear. Great. Just my luck. I was a light sleeper when I was on guard; sometimes the slightest movement set me off. But only on pure instinct my body went rigid, not making any sharp movements or loud noises. The walls were thin.

I pulled the watch away from my ear and disabled it. My feet slid off the bed and onto the floor. The rest of my body followed, leaving the bed without making the mattress squeak the tiniest bit. I was wearing dark clothes and my black combat boots.

I closed the door behind me as I exited the room. "Showtime," I whispered.

Being stealthy was like second nature to me. In spy movies, there would be a montage of the actors being "stealthy" while infiltrating an enemy base while action music played in the background. Usually there was a lot of somersaulting on the floor and looking around dramatically. Real-life being stealthy was the exact opposite.

All you really had to do was stick close to the walls and not make any noise. One time, my idiot partner was humming the Mission Impossible theme song under his breath and we were nearly caught by a few security guards. To be honest, I didn't think much of sneaking around. It was cool and all, but it was downright boring. A gun fight, while there was more chance of dying, was exciting. The adrenaline, the risk, the danger, I loved all of it.

It took me exactly an hour to sneak out of the building, and into the Hale Administrative building. Apparently, Erica's family had an entire building devoted to them as well. Figures.

The principal's office had a access code. I cursed loudly (in my head, duh) when I saw it. Why was I not surprised?

I examined it the best I could without leaving any fingerprints behind. I didn't risk punching in a code in fear that it could be the wrong one. What if there were alarms? I'd be caught red handed.

Could I hack it? It was a piece of technology. My phone was in my pocket. But my hacking skills only went so far, and they weren't very good in the first place. I could pass off as a hacker by spouting out random lingo and using fancy words, but when it came to the real thing, I was only as good as the next spy in training.

I slammed my fist into the principal's door. It had a lock on it, so I wasn't surprised that it didn't give way.

After a moment, an idea popped into my head. I wanted to punch myself. I had a freaking hair pin. There was a _lock_ on the _door_. Why had this idea struck me after two full minutes? Taking a long hair pin out of my hair, I bent it outward until it was one straight line and started working on the lock.

After a few beats of silence, I heard a loud _click_ and pushed open the door. I poked my head inside to see if the principal had fallen asleep on the desk(not a likely possibility, but it didn't hurt to be cautious). He wasn't. I slipped in the room and closed the door behind me.

As it closed, I briefly wondered if I would be trapped inside like the incident with the Box. I stood frozen for a moment, then shrugged. I could always just open a window.

Ripley said that the principal kept all of his passwords in a dictionary. This accurately matched the impression I already had of the principal, so I had no skepticism about Ben's words. What _was_ suspicious was why Ben had decided to tell me. He didn't know I was an enemy agent. He _could_ have been trying to help me out, but why?

From SPYDER's intel, Ben was a goody-two-shoes. The Golden Boy of the Academy of Espionage. So why would he do this? I wanted to mull over it longer, but I reminded myself that I had stuff to do.

I grabbed the dictionary on the shelf. I didn't even have to rifle through it. There may have been an access code on the door, so it made sense that the Principal could be a little lax with his security inside of the office, but taping an index card on the front cover of a dictionary was just stupid.

I thanked the principal's stupidity as I typed in the passcode, which was a string of numbers and letters and a disturbing amount of punctuation. After I had logged in, the words _Welcome, Barnabas Sidebottom_ flashed above the screen. (Was that really his name?) I couldn't help smirking at that. I would _definitely_ be using the Barnabas Sidebottom card on him next time, just to see his reaction. His background picture was a picture of an extremely ugly cat. I didn't have time to think about it for long.

To my disappointment, I didn't have to search the entire computer for the SPYDER files. The file was labeled "CLASSIFIED SPYDER FILES: DO NOT DELETE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES". They were right on his desktop. How boring and unoriginal. I shook my head, half amused and half disappointed. The CIA liked using "classified" a lot. I right clicked on the SPYDER files and pressed print, and waited as the printer spat them out. Joshua hadn't said anything against doing a little snooping.

Not that I would have listened anyhow, but this way would get me into a lot less trouble.

Then I dragged the file labeled "CLASSIFIED SPYDER FILES: DO NOT DELETE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" and deleted them without being under any circumstances at all.

Well, that was easy. Half of my mission was done.

 _Too easy_ , my paranoid mind whispered.

 _Be quiet_ , I told my paranoid mind, and shrugged it off as the Principal being incompetent as always.

I still had to fix Chip's grades, but that could come later. First, I had to have a little fun. I saw someone called "Director of CIA" listed under contacts. It only took me three seconds to decide what to do then. I ended up sending more than a few emails under the principal's name with some very unflattering comments.

"Ha," I muttered under my breath, "Have fun sorting that out, ."

I played Flapjack Frenzy for a while, a game that the Principal was obsessed with. He was on Level 236. It was kind of lame, and the squealing hedgehogs got old after a while, so I moved on to taking screenshots of his search history, which were actually kind of hilarious, and printed them out as well.

I could nearly hear Joshua's voice in my head: _Stop waiting around to get caught and finish your mission already!_

I could picture _exactly_ how he'd say it, too. Mouth turned down disapprovingly, eyes cold, hook crossed over his chest. For a moment it was like he was standing there, hissing into my ear.

Wow, that was creepy.

I pulled up grades. The principal had access to everyone's files. I snuck a look at Erica Hale's. Her GPA was a perfect 5.0 and she had an A-plus in every single class. Wouldn't it be funny if suddenly all her grades were F's? It wasn't a serious consideration. I had no doubt that if I had done that, Erica would do anything to find out the hacker and end their life.

Ben had a 3.3 GPA. He seemed to be doing considerably well in his classes, but failing depressingly in Hand-to-Hand Combat and Weaponry. If he was so bad at both things, how was his success rate so high? That was also suspicious. I mentally filed that fact for later.

I found Chip's name under the students list. I winced when I saw his Algebra grade. That really _was_ bad. I hacked into the system in the span of a few minutes. (It was easier because I was actually logged into the principal's computer. I mentally thanked Ripley for that.) I changed the percentages of his recent tests and the overall score. His grade was bumped up to a 97 percent.

But that made me curious. What was my grade? I found my name: Charlotte Anderson. I had received an A-plus on my SACSAs, which surprised me. Why weren't points being taken off for my embarrassing defeat by Erica? Those were all questions I had to ponder. But I heard footsteps coming from outside.

I have sensitive hearing. I was tested once, and the guy said that I could hear from long distances that the normal human ear couldn't. I went absolutely silent to make sure I had heard right. Another footstep. Heavy. No doubt heading in the principal's office. It was like the person was trying to not be heard, but it was obviously an adult. Too heavy to be a student. Which meant it was either a CIA agent or the Principal. Neither of which were flattering options.

I sprang into action. If it was a spy movie, hurried music would have played as I worked. I wiped my fingerprints off the keyboard and the table, took the papers from the printer and folded it, putting it in my jacket, and threw the window open. I swung myself out the open window with a feline grace, clinging to the frame with my fingernails. The wind whipped against my face fiercely. The flaps of my jacket quivered.

I looked down. I was, what, three stories down? I wasn't afraid of heights, but maybe my fall would alert other agents to my position. But there was only one way I could go without getting caught, and it wasn't going to be through the principal's office. I pushed the window down with one hand while gripping the frame of the window with the other. Taking a quick breath to steady my nerves, I jumped.

I spread my arms out to slow down the fall. The wind howled louder against my ears. Falling only took about two seconds. I landed in the snow on my feet, and didn't stop to wonder how lucky I was. I started running.

I didn't bother being careful. I just retracted my old route from memory and ran. Once I reached the entrance of the dorms, I just took a running leap and started scaling the wall. Was I crazy? Yes.

I got tired of sneaking around. It just wasn't my style. I knew that I could fall. I also knew that I wouldn't. I had climbed walls before. There was a trick to it. Just keep building your momentum. I kept on racing up the wall, using rough parts and ledges to help me hang on. My dorm was seven stories high. I counted stories as I climbed.

One, two, three, four, five, six-that was Ben's room-seven-There! I grabbed on to the ledge and pulled myself up. My fingers reached underneath the window and pulled until there was enough room for me to wiggle through. I dropped onto the ground of my room, breathing slightly faster than normal. The wind seemed to be quieter now, as the action died down.

I got on my feet and close the window. I could still feel the coolness of the wind underneath my jacket and the goosebumps running down my arms but I didn't care. The cement mattress was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I rolled onto it, feeling tired. I fell asleep in 0.5 seconds.

* * *

 _CIA Academy of Frickin Espionage_

 _The Box Again_

 _0938 hours_

When I woke up, there was sun in my eyes.

I turned over to face the wall and caught a glimpse of the alarm clock. It was 9:38 in the morning. I was caught in between shock that I had overslept and bliss that I had slept so long without waking up from a stupid thing. I was late for breakfast, registered in my mind. And my first class. And late thirty-eight minutes for my second class. My second class with , my Stealth and Recon teacher, already hated me, so I might as well wait until third.

I closed my eyes and fell into a peaceful sleep again.

When I woke up for the second time, there was really sun in my eyes. It was 9:55, only five minutes before my Weaponry class. I woke up slowly, taking my leisure time to brush my teeth, change clothes, and slip a knife onto my ankle holster. I didn't remove the classified papers from my pocket because I didn't feel right leaving them where they could be found in the open. I was hungry, having missed breakfast, and took a candy bar to go. I walked down the stairs slowly, and made my way to the shooting range.

By the time I walked through the doors, I was already eight minutes late.

Mustache Man, the weapons instructor, saw me and frowned. "Late, Anderson! Drop down and give me thirty!"

I stared at him blankly, deciding to play dumb. "Fifty what?"

He sputtered for a good two seconds. "For that comment, I'll make it a hundred!"

"A hundred _what_?"

"Anderson!" he barked. "Have you been living under a rock your entire life?"

I blinked slowly. "Yes."

He was flustered now, beginning to think I was actually stupid. " _Push ups,_ you idiot, Anderson! Give me one hundred of them, right now! And I want the entire class to count them!"

I shrugged, quite enjoying the frustration on his face at my nonchalance. "Okay."

The entire class turned to look at me. There was recognition on most of their faces, like 'Oh, there's that girl who fought Erica Hale' or maybe 'Wasn't she the one who mouth off to Tomey?' I really hoped it wasn't 'Hey! She's the one who hacked the principal's computer last night and scaled the wall!'

A few push-ups were nothing compared to what SPYDER made their new recruits go through. One of the SPYDER operatives, a guy called Connor Cage, had been the one to train me, and he was one of the most unsympathetic, merciless trainers I knew. He put me through a rigorous training course every day and didn't stop until I was ready pass out with exhaustion. In fact, I usually _did_ pass out with exhaustion.

I went down as slow as I could, holding the pose with both my elbows at a ninety degree angle for a full two seconds before rising up at the pace of a snail.

" _One_ ," the class counted.

I lifted my head and spotted Ripley in the crowd, holding a pistol. I shot him a quick wink and a smirk before I went down again. He blinked, looking startled. At the rate I was going, I'd be able to blow through eight minutes of class time.

Mustache Man was beginning to notice this by my fiftieth push up. My muscles were barely straining. This was a piece of cake. To make the situation better, his face was completely red and turning purple.

"Enough! Anderson, get up and get yourself a pistol! Make yourself useful and stay out of everyone's way. Can you even shoot a gun?"

"Might surprise you," I muttered.

"What was that?"

"What was what?" I widened my eyes innocently.

He gave me a hairy eyeball for a few moments, then decided that he would deal with me later. He glared at the students who were looking on. "What are you waiting for? Get on with it!"

Soon the weaponry range was exploding with gunshot noises. Not real ones, obviously. The dummy bullets acted just like normal bullets, but they wouldn't be fatal.

I loaded and unloaded the ammunition absentmindedly as I watched Ben shoot. His bullets barely grazed the target, but his intent was impressive. His eyebrows scrunched up in concentration as he aimed. Mustache Man lurked behind him, mumbling insulting comments. I let my gaze pass over the rest of the students, who were doing a progressively decent job, so I wouldn't seem creepy staring only at Ben.

"Anderson!" I heard Mustache Man's voice, which was becoming less favorable by the second. "What are you doing just sitting around? You think that pistol's going to shoot itself?"

"No," I answered the rhetorical question.

"Then get to it!"

I watched him stride off, probably to yell at another kid. I sighed and picked up my pistol. Wasn't I supposed to be good at shooting guns or something? I walked over to an empty spot and raised my gun. Connor Cage's voice rang in my ears.

 _Don't take long to aim. If you're going to take time to aim, your enemy will have you down and dead in a few seconds flat. You just need to start shooting until you hit that spot you want. Never hesitate to hit a target. One millisecond of hesitation could either save your life or destroy it. In other words, don't be a coward._

Coming from a man who liked using fists rather than words, that was solid advice.

I shot three times. Bang. Bang. Bang. My targets went down like bags of rocks.

It fell into a familiar rhythm. Aim. Adjust. Bang. I was taking down targets faster than anyone else on the shooting range. Aim. Bang. I unloaded my empty clip and loaded. I wasn't even aiming anymore. It was just bam, bam, bam, three targets down. I didn't need to think.

One part of my brain registered, at some point, that Ben Ripley was next to me. He was taking time to recover after every shot, which was mainly the reason why he kept on missing.

"Don't do that," I told him without looking.

He looked at me, seemingly surprised I had said something. "Do what?"

"Recoiling after shooting. You're falling back every time you squeeze the trigger."

"You don't seem to have a problem with it," he noticed.

"I've had practice. Loads of practice. You need to brace yourself for the impact. You control the gun, not the other way around."

"Okay," he nodded, "Thanks."

What was wrong with me? I wasn't supposed to be _helping the target_. "No problem," I said awkwardly.

 _Never get close to a target_ , Joshua had told me once, his cold green eyes flashing. _You can never have connections. It never does anything except make you weak._

He had spoken from experience. I wondered if it was Erica Hale.

"How are you so good at shooting?"

"My uncle taught me when I was really young," I said with an edge of uncertainty, wondering if that was the same lie I had told Chip and Zoe.

"Cool." He smiled at me, literally _for no reason whatsoever_.

I saw Joshua's leaf green eyes. _Never get close to a target_.

 _But is that really a bad thing?_

* * *

 **See that review button down there? Click it.**

 **I dare you.**


	7. Chapter 7: We Need To Talk

**Updating late! Ah...excuses, excuses. I'm going to get right into it, here are my excuses. One, I was sick so I couldn't write. Two, homework.**

 **Yeah, and that's it. Procrastination. Sorry, sorry. I don't like keeping to a schedule!**

 **But while you're here and stuff, enjoy...**

 **Oh but first disclaimer blah blah blah I'm not Stuart or Gibbs blah blah blah..**

 **Okay, now you can enjoy.**

* * *

 _Not at the Academy_

 _Driving a car_

 _0300 hours_

It was a few hours after midnight, and I was far, far from the Academy of Espionage. I couldn't sleep, so I had snuck out of the dorms after dark. I hijacked a sleek Lexus parked outside a small cafe. I was driving around in circles, not aiming to go anywhere. I learned to drive when I was ten, and I was a half-decent wheelman.

I knew it wasn't a very nice thing to do, steal cars from random people and drive them around. I knew it was bad, even though I'd return them afterwards. The feeling of being the one in control of the car, it helped me concentrate on things. As weird as it sounded, I needed to multitask for my mind to freely focus.

When I was loose, memories from the past couldn't haunt me. I was a different person, with a different past, with a different life.

I was in my own world, and I pretended. I pretended I was someone who had never heard of the name SPYDER. I wasn't a deadly SPYDER agent. It's embarrassing to admit, but I pretend I had a family. Loving parents, bickering siblings, loyal friends, and what the heck, maybe even a dog.

In the back of my mind, that reality was never true, but it was nice to pretend.

When I wasn't pretending, I was reflecting.

There was never time for regret in SPYDER. It was a permanent business, and I knew that. The moment I shook the director's hand, my fate was sealed. From then on, I lived, breathed, trained for my future. All those hours of dedication in the training room, all of those dull lessons about bombs and pistols, all of those were for one purpose. SPYDER was my future. Now, I knew that back then, I'd never had a choice in the matter. It was either serve or die. And I was too cowardly to die.

I was driving slowly down a street when I saw a police cruiser driving next to me. I didn't completely freak out, but my heart skipped a few beats and my hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. The police officer was looking straight ahead, and didn't notice me. But if he turned his head ninety degrees and squinted to see me, he would have seen an underage minor driving a stolen car.

In all of my years at SPYDER, I had never been behind bars. That wasn't going to change now. The traffic light flashed red. My foot pressed on the brake. The police car slowed to a stop next to me. I risked another glance at the officer. The police officer was leaning back in his seat, nodding his head to the beat of the music.

Traffic light turned green. The police cruiser sped ahead of my Lexus.

I slowed down even more, so that the police cruiser was good distance away from me when I switched lanes and made a U-turn. The cruiser vanished from sight.

I breathed a sigh of relief. That was way too close.

I turned into a lonely little street of shops. Most of them were closed, but I saw a gas station with a flickering sign that read OPEN 24 HOURS! With an exclamation point, as to emphasize this point. I pulled over at the gas station.

I looked myself over. I dressed casually, in ripped jeans and a loose fitting shirt. Something a normal teenager would wear. I didn't look the least bit like a spy for an enemy organization. If someone had lifted up the leg of my jeans, they would have found a gun holstered there.

I rummaged around in the glove compartment and came up with a few bills and coins. After briefly contemplating the consequences of stealing it, I went inside the store next to the gas station to buy some things. The bell jingled when I walked through the door.

After browsing through the aisle for a while, I set a bag of Cheetos, a large coffee, and a candy bar down on the checkout counter. I dug a hand in my pocket for the money.

The cashier was a slim blonde haired woman, legs propped up on the counter, immersed in a women's magazine. She was chomping on a wad of gum. I watched as she slowly blew a bubble until it grew to the size of a shot-put ball. It stayed there, not popping, hiding most of her face from view. If she noticed I was there, she seemed to give no indication that she knew of my existence.

I made a noise somewhere between clearing a throat and a cough.

Her eyes flashed up. She snapped her gum. The bubble obscuring her face vanished inside her mouth. "Cash or credit?"

What kind of question was that? What thirteen year old had a credit card?

"Cash," I answered.

She scanned the items with a scanner-thing with a fake casualty. "What're you doing out so late at night?"

Wonderful. Another nosy adult.

"What do you mean?" I asked in a fake-confused way.

She gave me a stare filled with suspicion. "No ten year old is buying coffee in an isolated town. Do your parents know where you're at?"

I nearly laughed. In my dreams, yeah. "First off, I'm not ten. Secondly, they're dead," I told her, knowing it would throw her off.

It did. Her eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, and soft, like she was pitying me. I didn't necessarily like seeing pity directed at me any more than I needed it, but it was good for manipulating people. "Geez. I'm sorry. What a terrible thing."

I watched her scan my Cheetos. What a classic, cliche answer. That's what everyone would say. But I didn't tell her that. I said, "yeah," and let it hang there in the silence. I could tell the woman was too uncomfortable to press any further. She handed me my items and mumbled something after my back.

I got in the car again, taking a swig of coffee and unwrapping the candy bar.

* * *

 _Somewhere_

 _Some time_

The food was all gone after I had returned the car and jumped the gate at Spy School. I snuck into the dorms in a similar fashion I had gotten back after deleting the files, and then fell asleep on the bed.

I was successfully asleep for about three minutes before my alarm went crazy. I sat up straight in bed and cursed the stupid thing.

I shouldn't have fallen asleep. Now my entire body ached for sleep. My head was drifting to the pillow like a magnet. My arms stretched out for my bed. It took all that I had learned from my SPYDER training, but I finally managed to drag myself out of bed and into the bathroom to swiftly brush my teeth.

I was in the Mess Hall by seven-something, head propped on hand and sleepily dragging a spoon filled with a brown lumpy mixture to my mouth. I wasn't sitting with Ben and his friends today. I didn't have the enthusiasm to cope with their childish arguments and loud friends in the morning. Mostly Annoying Warren.

Instead, I found myself sitting again with Erica Hale. Her stony silence, although very unfriendly, was much preferred over Warren's company. She was apparently following her breakfast routine. She was reading a thick textbook big enough to conceal her face from my view. It was titled A Look Inside the Enemy's Mind. Books were stacked next to her, things like The Full Guide to Seducing the Enemy and Ways To Properly Detonate A Bomb Without Dying.

Fun.

But was everything that went in this girl's head about spying? Did she even have any hobbies? I admired her dedication, but I couldn't deny that she seriously needed a life outside of spying. It was sad, really. Her entire life shouldn't be thrown away like that just for the family business.

As I was dragging Disgusting Spoonful No.14 to my mouth, I looked up and promptly choked on the mixture.

She was looking at me. Erica Hale. Was looking at me.

Before you say it, I wasn't being overly paranoid about her innocently sneaking a glance. It was not a normal look. She hadn't moved a muscle expect to shift her textbook a millimeter so that I could see her face. And she was full-out staring at me. Her eyes were fixed on me, making me feel like a bug underneath a microscope. She wasn't frowning at me, or saying something terrible, or in fact, showing any type of human emotion whatsoever. She didn't need to. The message in her eyes was scary. Like she was glaring at me, but not glaring-glaring at me.

Now that, that was a talent.

Still, I was choking ten seconds later and finally managed to stifle my sounds with a mouthful of milk. Eyes had shifted to our table, but Erica made them turn away with a simple glare.

I filed that under my mental folder of Erica Hale's Full Spectrum of Talents.

"Are you done making a fool of yourself?" Erica asked, as if she was discussing the weather with me. Now that she had gotten my attention, her eyes were scanning the page of the textbook again like nothing had happened.

I pointed my spoon at her. "Is that a rhetorical question? 'Cause I really can't tell when you're being all serious."

She exhaled a puff of air, too airy to be a sigh and too loud to be a normal exhale of air.

Since she wasn't talking, I decided to do it for her. "Why were you staring at me like that?"

"I wasn't staring."

"Uh, yes you were. Your eyes were bugged out. Like this." I did my best impression of her gaze.

"My eyes did not look like that," she denied calmly, "I was trying to get your attention, which is fairly difficult since you seem to have the attention span of a ten year old."

I set my spoon down. "Now, wait just a minute-"

She bypassed my arguments. "We need to talk."

My blood ran cold at her words. Her face was calm but serious, giving nothing away. She couldn't possibly know… I had covered my tracks well. Not even the best of the best agent in the CIA could've seen me infiltrate the Hale Building.

I played off my confusion with humor. "Let me guess. You're breaking up with me."

She said nothing in response, but she turned her head so I could see the look in her eyes. Her stare could have melted glaciers. I guess I should have been expecting that.

"Wow, tough crowd." I said, "All right, shoot."

She pinned me with her already-intense eyes. "Drop the normal-teenager act, Charlotte."

The way she said my fake-name told me that she suspected that I wasn't your average spy in training. But she had no evidence on me. She didn't know jack. I reminded myself this as I continued to eat my disgusting glop. I recalled a tidbit of info from my training. Doing something normal and harmless, like eating, could make you seem less deadly. (Talking in casual voices about world domination was SPYDER's speciality, after all.)

I tilted my head in mock-confusion. "Was that, like...spy-code for something?" There was laughter in my eyes, a joking lilt in my voice that told her I was just joking. I lowered my voice dramatically. "Who do you want me to kill?"

Her eyes narrowed. Not amused. "Don't play dumb, Anderson. We have things to talk about." The way she enunciated the word stuff was more ominous than Joshua would have been able to pull off.

I studied her face carefully. An outsider looking on would have seen no human emotions on her face except maybe irritation. But I picked up a slight narrowing of the eyes. Of suspicion...or possibly tiredness. She was, not calm, not nervous, but ready. Her body was coiled up not noticeably, but tighter than usual like she was expecting a fight.

I tried one of the best methods in the book. Frustration. I sighed and turned my eyes annoyed. I set my spoon on the tray. "Look, Hale. I have no idea what you're talking about. I just arrived here, like, a couple days ago, and I'm just a normal teenager who happens to know how to hack a computer, and yeah, I'm handy with guns but that's it. I know you're famous around here and you're supposed to be an awesome superspy. I don't know what your beef is with me, but I promise, I've got nothing against the CIA."

Lie, lie, lie, and, lie! my mind sang.

I saw something change in the way she looked at me. Not that she believed my bluff, but it was wariness. She knew I was lying. We both knew. Our eyes were locked on each other, ice blue against innocent brown. I saw it in her eyes, and she must've seen the same in mine. But she didn't say anything. After all, what could she say? She had no evidence, no proof. All she had was her gut instinct, and while it was helpful, it wasn't going to get me out of this place.

Something passed between us. An unspoken challenge.

Erica broke the silence that had settled. "We'll see."

She left the table. People watched her go, but averted her eyes when she glanced their way. It was like seeing the CEO of a company walk among the lowly employees. Nobody wanted to look into the lion's mouth.

After she had left, I noticed the pocket of my jacket was heavier. I slipped a hand into my pocket to feel the slip of paper that had not been there before.

I blinked in astonishment when I took it out. I had seen her go. Never once did I see her take out a pencil and scratch out a message on a piece of paper. Nor had I saw her slip it in. And she was sitting across from me! And my eyes were on her the whole time! So how did she-

I shook my head. I'd figure that later. My eyes focused on the words on the piece of paper, which was the size and length of a fortune inside of a fortune cookie. The types you got at Panda Express. On it, there were printed-out letters in Braille code. I frowned again in confusion. When in the world did Erica have time to do all this? Was there a printer in the library or something? She did seem to have some mysterious talent for being cryptic.

It took me a few seconds to decipher the code. It read:

LIBRARY. 2300 HRS SHARP.

Was she serious?

After that train wreck, Hale wanted to meet and have a civil conversation. Of course. That was very sensible.

But she must've had an ulterior motive. What was she planning? To kill me and hide the body? Threaten me? Maim me? Sit down with a nice cup of tea and discuss politics, perhaps?

Ha! Like I was going-

"Charlie!"

The voice surprised me so much I had to shove the note into my pocket as fast as I could without seeming overly suspicious.

Zoe slid into the seat next to me. Ben followed her, but he sat in the spot where Erica had originally occupied.

This seat is taken, I wanted to say.

"Why didn't you sit with us today?"

Warren, predictably, was not far behind. He slid into the seat next to Zoe, moving closer to her in a kind-of-gross way. "Yeah. Why didn't you sit with us today?"

Well, see, I was having a good day and I didn't feel like ruining it, I thought snarkily. "Sorry, you guys seemed a little busy over there."

"Well," Warren started. He didn't really like me, did he?

"Of course we weren't!" Zoe said at the same time, "You can sit with us whenever you want."

"Oh. Cool." I said in monotone.

Zoe beamed and threw an arm around my shoulder.

It's WAY too early in the morning for this! My mind screamed. I physically refrained myself from shrinking back from the contact. It wasn't that I hated it. It was just...weird. So, I sat as stiff and rigid as possible so she would get the message. She did.

"So you're all buddy-buddy with the Ice Queen, huh?"

"No, she was being her usual Ice Queen self." I fingers groped for the note inside my pocket to make sure it was still there. "Then she left."

"Why?" Ben asked. He was being too curious.

Zoe nodded. "Yes, why?"

I shrugged. "No idea. Homework, maybe. Class starts in-" I checked my watch.

"Six minutes," Ben and I said at the same time. I looked at him questioningly.

"I usually have a good assumption of what time of the day it is without having to look at my watch." He explained. "One of the perks of having good memory when it comes to numbers."

"Cool." And I thought so, too. That could definitely be useful.

"It's more than cool," Zoe interjected.

"Yeah," Warren echoed, sounding a little put off she wasn't complimenting him. "Ben is great." His voice held no little sarcasm.

"Speaking of awesome, how'd you sneak into the principal's office to fix Chip's grades?" Zoe asked, way too loudly.

"Shh!" I hissed. "Go and tell the whole Mess Hall, would you?"

"Well, did you?"

Even Warren seemed interested in that.

I shrugged again and put on a silly little mysterious smile. "Yup. Went beautifully, no difficulties whatsoever."

Zoe gaped. "No way."

Ben asked, "Did you use the dictionary?"

I nodded. "Thanks, that saved me a lot of hacking. Useful bit of info you gave me."

"Don't make a habit of it, even if it means helping Chip. There are worse things I could imagine than Chip terrorizing you."

"And, plus," Zoe added, "Chip doesn't maim his and Ben's friends. Only a little."

Yeah, 'cause that was reassuring.

I sat back as Warren and Zoe began arguing about what they would do to pass the time in Professor Crandall's class again, watching Ben smile and add his thoughts about the argument with some interest. Ben Ripley was a strange little enigma. He seemed relatively, so normal. Good with numbers, yeah. Good mind. But so normal. He was difficult to find out, but in the end he was just a normal person, right?

Anyway, my job wasn't to figure him out. It was to kill him, plain and simple. If my career bubbled down to one little slip, that would be just pathetic. I was going to do that efficiently and without being compromised.

* * *

I swore to myself that I wasn't going to meet Erica at the library. After a day of daydreaming, dozing off, doodling, and yawning in class, I was ready to catch up on some sleep. For some reason, my mind was disagreeing with my body. The note kept on flashing in my mind. LIBRARY. 2300 HRS SHARP. Yet, sleep sounded better. This is how the exchange went:

Sleep, my mind moaned.

Go, my body murmured.

Sleep.

Go.

Sleep.

GO.

Sleeeeep.

GOOOOOOO!

Sleep...Sheep...sleeee…

GOGOGOGOGO!

In the end, my body won. My feet were taking me...somewhere. My mind was in a daze, generally acknowledging the fact that I was taking one step after another. I found myself in the library. I mindlessly picked the lock and drifted inside. Surrounded by books, I plopped down on a table and my eyelids fluttered down.

It occured to me, as I was daydreaming about Dreamland, that I was acting strange.

Did Hale put a drug on that note? I couldn't think of any drug she could have put on it, but again, my mind was woozy and could barely think straight. So who knows?

I blinked, and when I opened my eyes Erica Hale was sitting in the chair across the table. She was dressed in her usual black getup, her hair was straightened and falling to her shoulders, and she looked like she had just stepped out of a SPIES TODAY magazine.

"Hey," I slurred sleepily. Then I realized who I was 'heying'. I sat up so suddenly my hand slammed on the table and made a loud noise. "Hey!"

"Hey," she said, sounding bored. "Lower the volume, alright? I don't want anyone hearing us."

"Okay, but…Did you put a drug on that note?"

Her voice was completely innocent. "What note?"

Confirming my suspicions. She had! But why? I was on my guard instantly.

My head was clearing. The scent of gunpowder...and was that lilacs? It was keeping me alert, aware that a dangerous person was in front of me. "Whatever, Hale. Are you wearing perfume? Oh, and that's strong. Do you bathe in the stuff?"

She shook her head, looking disgusted that I was thinking of this instead of focusing on the true conflict. "I'm not going to dignify that with a response."

I gasped. "So you do bathe in it!"

She gave me a steely glare. "The reason I called you…"

I could feel the suspense in the air as she paused, probably for effect. It was exactly like that one moment in the horror movie…!

But I ruined the moment.

"Well?" I said impatiently. "The reason you called me...what?"

She gave me a look. "Don't interrupt me."

But she continued. "The reason I called you," she repeated slowly, then winced like it physically hurt her to say the words "Is because...I need a favor."

I blinked. What?


	8. Chapter 8: Hugging It Out (sort of)

**Finally! An update! First one in like two months. (But who's counting?) So...uh...sorry. :/**

 **I've been feeling like a jerk, seeing all your nice reviews and not knowing what to do next for this story. In the meantime, I stupidly decided to make another story and now I have to kind of frequently update that one too. (Check it out if you like PJO, leave a review if you want to.) I also had tons of other fanfic ideas and tried to write them all down. So I've been busy with that and had barely any inspiration for this, but finally I felt so bad that I just had to get this chapter out. I'm sorry in advance if it feels a little awkward and rushed and...ugh, bad.**

 **Disclaimer: I'm not Stuart Gibbs. Enjoy...**

* * *

 _You guessed it— The CIA Academy of Blah Blah Blah_

 _The Library_

 _02330 hours_

 _I need a favor._

The words echoed around the library. There was a moment of silence where Erica looked at me, looking like she wanted to take the words back. But before she could open her mouth to retract it, I beat her to the punch.

Like an idiot, I stammered, "You...what?"

Even a SPYDER agent can be caught off-guard.

Erica's face smoothened out, going back to its indifferent calm expression again. "I need a favor."

"A favor?"

"Yes." She raised both eyebrows at me, daring me to make fun of her. "Can you stop repeating what I'm saying?"

I shook my head, not sure what I was feeling at the moment. Confused? Suspicious? When all common sense goes out the window, it's my instant reaction to evaluate everything.

Erica Hale was so far beyond the definition of normal that people in the school viewed her as untouchable. A wild card. She wasn't even regarded as a normal human being. She functioned like an emotionless robot, doing her job flawlessly and aside from making witty remarks, having no reaction to anything(or as far as I could tell). Noticing signs that Erica was human, such as asking for help, was as rare as seeing a pterodactyl.

Me, I don't like being vulnerable. It gives the enemy more parts to exploit. Never in my thirteen years of my life had the words _I need help_ escaped my lips. In a way, I could relate to Erica on the level of wanting to be independent. But I couldn't understand why she needed me to do something that she was probably capable of doing herself.

"Why?" I asked finally. Playing the ignorant student was the safe path.

"Because what I need is in your select range of talents."

More to the point the talents she _thought_ I had. Hacking and shooting, if I recall. Both of which she should be exempt at. So why should she need me? My suspicion climbed higher.

I pressed. "Which would be…?"

"It wouldn't be very smart of me to tell you that without having your assent that you're going to help me first."

Not a good sign. I had two choices. Agree to something possibly dangerous, or disagree and earn the wrath of Erica Hale. Something I also had to take into account was that if she was Josh's ex, she would know everything that he did, maybe more.

"No," I said firmly. "Tell me what you're going to do first, and what I'm going to get from helping you. And then we'll talk about me joining you."

Her eyebrow twitched in irritation. It was something that only a skilled observer would have noticed. Even _slightly_ showing that Erica was irritated spoke volumes. "Fine," she said tightly, and my first reaction was being so shocked that she agreed that it took me a moment to answer. My second reaction was annoyance that she was able to make me shocked.

"All right, Hale. Time to spill."

"It's simple, really," she said, shrugging. "My grandfather's keeping something from me, and the only place I can find out is on one of the CIA's brand new computers. The computer is one of the CIA's newer models. My grandfather…" She paused here, struggling with her next words. "-would rather me not know about the specific things in the files. Whenever my fingerprints touch the keyboard, it sends an automatic message to my grandfather, one of the rare occasions he actually checks his phone. So obviously I can't do the hacking. Anyway, that doesn't matter. You seem to know your way around and into a computer's mainframe, if the hacking professor's opinion is worth anything. I need you to hack into something, delete some stuff, pick out some other things, and exit without any issues. Got it?"

I mulled this over. "So basically you want me to risk my life and reputation to get you information?"

"Not exactly the way I would have put it, but yes."

"I have a few questions. You said it's only your fingerprints that get recorded. Can't you just...I don't know, use gloves?"

Her eyes flashed with annoyance. "You don't think I've tried that, newbie? The keyboard has a scanner."

"If your grandfather gets an alarm every time you do this, why hasn't he picked up on the fact that you want to get your hands on them and take bigger precautions to stop you? And why can't you just disable the alarm? _You_ seem to know your way around a computer as well."

"You ask a lot of questions," she grumbled. "First of all, I can't disable the alarms. My grandfather has made sure of that. Secondly, I've only hacked into the computer once. And all he gave me was a warning. He's sure that I won't try again."

"Sounds like your grandfather doesn't know you very well."

Erica only gave a disgruntled sound. "Done with your questions?"

"For the record, I don't think it's a good idea to do this. If your grandfather kept something from you, he obviously doesn't want you to find out."

"Which is why we're doing it. I thought we already accomplished that."

I ignored the statement. "And lastly, I don't get why I have to help you, aside from the fact that you're very scary and have forceful methods. There's nothing in return from me."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. You can ask me any favor you want in return."

There were a lot of loopholes in that, I noticed. "Any favor?"

"After I make sure that it's doable, and you have to ask me on a day when I feel like it."

A red light started going off quietly inside my head. Erica wasn't this reckless. This didn't seem like her at all. The plan was too poorly executed, and the chances of succeeding were slim. She knew this, of course. She was the one who made it up. And her negotiation skills were sloppy and less forceful. Subpar at best. Was I overthinking that? Also, there was a light problem. I wasn't even sure I _could_ perform this task. I wasn't that good of a hacker. But if I didn't or refused, I would risk the chance of blowing my cover. And I wasn't about to turn a free favor from Erica Hale.

I nodded, finally. "Okay. I'll do it."

She stretched her hand across the table. I eyed it warily, still trying to pick out her entire plan, but took my own hand out and gripped it. She squeezed it and smiled the most un-Erica smile I had ever seen. In my trying-to-figure-out-her-intentions haze, I loosened my hand and smiled back a little. That was my fatal mistake.

In a split second, too quick for me to register, I was on the floor and Erica was on top of me with her knees pinning my arms to my chest. Once I realized what was happening, I struggled like a panicked fish out of water, but it was no use. Erica was two years older and had about five years more of experience, and she knew how to trap a SPYDER agent.

 _Trap, trap, trap,_ my mind buzzed frantically. She knew. Oh shoot, she knew.

A tornado of panic on the inside, I still tried to play it off. "Hale, what are you-"

Her eyes glinted with accusation in the darkness. "Anderson, let me make this very clear. I know who you work for, Charlotte, if that's even your real name. And I have no qualms about killing you right now, if you don't give me the right information."

My blood turned into ice. I turned deadly calm, every muscle in my body ready to spring at a given notice. But there was no way of telling from scrutinizing Erica's face if she was bluffing or not. And if I gave up my cover right then and there, I would have extinguished any chance, as slim as they might be, of finishing my mission.

So I let my eyes widen in astonishment. My jaw loosened and dropped. "Wh-what-"

"Oh, come on." She snapped. "Let's not play this game. SPYDER. That name ring a bell, newbie?" She was mocking me, trying to get a rise out of me.

Okay, here's where I had to make a snap decision. Option A was the smart thing to do: Delay her, pretend to be innocent and confused, and convince her that I wasn't what she thought I was(even though I really was what she thought I was). Or Option B, which was more my style: Get her to reveal everything she knew, what the so-called mission was, catch her off guard and knock her out and dispose of her as well. I calculated my odds in my head and decided on one. So I made my face turn all stony and cold, making a physical transformation into to the typical evil villain character you see in dramatic movies.

In a low voice, I said, "And what do you think I am, Erica Hale?"

"Isn't it obvious? It was clear from the first moment you stepped onto campus," she scoffed cockily, not looking the slightest bit wary that I decided to reveal myself so easily. "Your stance, your eyes, your speech. It's too perfect, too cautious. Too faked. If you were trying to stay low-key, you weren't doing a good job with it. I was evaluating you from the moment you got into the Box. I wasn't sure of it until your SACSAs. I never forget a thing, and your fight style perfectly matches Joshua Hallal's. He helped me too, you know." Bitter betrayal shone in her eyes as she spoke.

I was half angry at myself for that, and also skeptical that Erica was telling the truth. She wasn't the reveal-everything-to-the-antagonist type of girl, I knew that much. From what I gathered from Joshua's mission report files and my prior knowledge of Hale, she was the type to sneak up on her target and take them out silently. Why was she spilling so many of her secrets?

"I heard you two were the real item in Spy School," I drawled. "So, what, now you're the bitter ex who wants revenge on the new girl?"

Her eyes flashed. She slapped the heel of her hand on my chest, hard, making me draw in a sharp breath. "Don't pretend like you know anything."

"Whatever, Hale," I wheezed. "So I'm guessing the so-called 'mission' was a front, then? Just a lure to get me here?"

"You're just figuring that out?" She scoffed. I internally rolled my eyes. This girl was way too condescending for her own good. _You're one to talk,_ whispered the tinny voice in my brain. "You fell for it easier that I thought you would."

"Looks like you thought wrong."

Faster than I could react, pain exploded across my face as Erica's fist pummeled it. I tasted copper in the back of my mouth. My head snapped to the side when she landed a vicious blow to my jaw. Through the haze of pain, my mind managed to note that she was only aiming to bruise me up a little, not to inflict serious harm or damage. I could handle that. I had been through worse, no doubt. SPYDER didn't want their best spies to rat them out after being captured. They put me through their best torturer expert, a nasty piece of work called Nick Martin.

It was technically illegal, but necessary, they kept telling me. Necessary.

The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed through the library. I had to grudgingly admit that Erica had an excellent right hook. So far I hadn't let a noise of pain escape through me. But after she landed a nasty hit, I had to make a muffled sound of pain. Seeing that she had struck her target, Hale smirked.

"What does SPYDER want?" she snarled, leaning next to my face.

"Oh, you haven't figured that out yet?" I asked, mock surprise flashing over my features.

She punched me again.

"That's going to leave a bruise," I murmured.

"You probably deserve as much. Probably more," she shot back, and raised her fist. I braced myself for the impact, when suddenly-

"Erica, stop!"

I recognized that voice.

She punched me anyway, but then lifted up her head with an irritated expression. "I told you not to interfere!"

Ben Ripley came into my sight, looking grim faced and worried. His eyes were dulled with sleep and his brown hair was completely flat on one side and sticking out on the other. I gathered that he'd been catching up on his REM sleep when Erica rounded him up to be her sidekick on another "mission". He looked at my face and he grimaced in horror.

"You're beating her up!"

Erica raised her eyebrows. She said, "Good to see your eyes are functioning" the same time I said, "Well, duh."

"Your entire 'incredible' plan was to capture her and punch her repeatedly in the face until she talks? That was your plan?" He looked from Erica to me like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "You can't do that!"

"Yes, I can." She punched me one more time. "See? I just did it."

I groaned over-exaggeratedly. "Would you _stop_ doing that? I see no reason why we can't just sit down and have a civilized conversation like normal people."

"You're a criminal. That immediately disqualifies you," Erica said coldly. She looked back at Ben. "What's wrong with my plan? The top brass's idea of 'interrogating' is to put people in a cell and pray that they talk. That hasn't worked on anyone else since the Dark Ages, so why would it work on one of SPYDER's top agents?"

"Thanks," I said.

"That wasn't a compliment."

"Just because it didn't work on Murray doesn't mean it won't work on Charlotte," argued Ben.

"Murray? You mean Murray Hill?" I repeated in disgust from the floor. It was becoming more annoying that they were having the conversation like I wasn't even there. And Erica was still in my bubble space, so that made it slightly more awkward. "SPYDER's completely given up on that piece of work. He's really annoying, incompetent, and he uses up all of the bacon. Ironic when you think of it, considering he's the closest mankind has to a real pig."

"Yes, I know that firsthand," Ben says, then gives me a look like he isn't sure what to think about me. "Wait. So you really know him, then? You're really a double agent for SPYDER?"

I shrug to the best of my ability. "We've sort of already established that, but yeah. Sorry."

"You...don't really seem like a bad guy." Ben had that confusing look on him again. Like he wanted to be mad at me but couldn't get past the fact that another one of his friends was a spy for the other side.

"Most bad guys generally don't want to seem like bad guys," I explained patiently. "If you knew the bad guys were bad guys, then they wouldn't be bad guys anymore."

"What?" Erica snapped. "Nothing you're saying is making sense."

"That happens to me a lot of the time too," I said. "Sometimes I can't understand what I'm saying either."

"We're getting off topic." Erica said. "This isn't social hour. I am interrogating you, and you will tell me what you know. And as for you, Ben," She had a dangerous look in her eye. Honestly, I didn't envy Ben. "you are not going to let your morals get in the way of this."

Ripley looked like a kicked puppy. "Erica-"

"Then why'd you bring him in the first place?" I interrupted.

She ignored this as well. "I'm going to ask you a simple question. If you don't answer, or if you answer with another smart aleck comment, I will expose your identity. You'll be locked in a jail cell for the rest of your miserable life, with a few bruises that will be on your face for a long, long time. You and I both know that SPYDER won't be coming for you. I don't think you're the type to spill secrets, but what good is a secret agent who isn't secret anymore?" She let that sink in. I had to give her points for the fancy speech. "So. What is SPYDER planning?"

I searched for a way out but could find none. She had me pinned, metaphorically and literally. My mind drew a blank. The only thing I could come up with was, "I don't know."

"Try again."

"I..."

"Think about your next words," Hale warned. "Carefully."

Ben was standing to the side, white pale and eyes wide. He looked extremely out of place. We were two trained spies and assassins, and he was some kid the CIA had grabbed off the streets and was soon to get killed.

"I'll tell you," I said finally, trying to buy myself time, "under one condition."

"That's what they always say," Erica said with a grim smile. "No deal."

"Hear me out, Hale. You threaten me, I refuse, you use me as your convenient punching bag. That's out this is going to go, 'round and around and around. Truth is, I couldn't care less if you expose my identity. I don't care if SPYDER won't be coming for me. I'm just a small useless pawn in their game. The facts are, I get off either killed or jobless, and you still don't have your answers. Or you could agree with my conditions, I slip you a little info, and everyone's happy in the end. Deal?"

"Erica," Ben piped up, "I think we should-"

But he trails off as she shoots a deadly look at him. Then she turns back to me. Erica's face is carefully blank. She contemplates my words, like each one is taking a certain amount of time to register in her brain. I held my breath, preparing for the moment she was going to say, "No deal" and punch me in the face again.

After a tense silence, she nods. "Have it your way, Anderson. But you're going to tell us every tidbit of information you have on SPYDER. If not, you die. Instantly. Clear?"

I grinned. Yeah, like that was going to happen. "Crystal."

"And stop smiling. I haven't done you a favor."

"Yes, ma'am." I said. "How about letting me up, first?"

* * *

 **Sort of a cliffhanger, sorry not sorry...**

 **Review!**


	9. Chapter 9: Sprinkles it is

_CIA Academy of Espionage_

 _Library_

 _0100 hours_

"Ow! Could you be a little more gentle?"

Erica looked impatient, the antibiotic swab poised in her hand. "Don't be so whiny about it. You're supposed to be a tough SPYDER agent, aren't you?"

I winced again as the sting in my face came back. "I usually tend to my own wounds."

"'Wounds' is a gross overstatement," said Erica as she dabbed more on my face, "These are tiny bruises, they'll fade in a week or two. You're lucky I decided to stop punching you. But we need you to look as inconspicuous as possible, and I don't trust you to _not_ milk your injuries to the CIA."

"I wouldn't!" I said unconvincingly.

"Sure," Erica rolled her eyes doubtfully.

If anything, the sting that came was worse than being punched. And Erica looked like she was enjoying it. She tried and failed to hide a smirk after I flinched away. I gave her my best glare and swiftly grabbed the swab from her hand. "Okay, okay! That's enough."

Erica mocked me. "The tough SPYDER agent can't take a little sting?"

"That's it. Like you said, the bruises are nothing. I'll pawn them off as an accident or something." I chucked the wipe into the trash bin and stood up from the library chair. "I'm going back to my room now, if you don't mind."

She blocked me gracefully by sweeping up from her own chair and stepping in my way. "Remember, you're meeting Ben and I back here at the same time today."

"Today?" I complained. "Can't it be tomorrow? I spent all of this night on your meeting thing, and I need my beauty sleep."

"No," she refused mercilessly.

"There is literally no reason why it has to be today." I had a feeling she was only refusing to make it more painful for me. "Don't _you_ need your beauty sleep as well?"

"No."

"I'm seriously contemplating your humanity right now. You're not a robot, are you?"

She looked at me distastefully in answer.

"Jeez, Hale, it's a joke. You're exactly like Joshua."

It was meant to be just a harmless joking comment, but I was surprised as she suddenly whirled on me, stabbing a finger at my chest. I instinctively took up a defensive position in case she decided that I wasn't worth it after all and judo flip me to Africa. "I'm _nothing_ like Joshua."

I raised my hands in a calm surrender, steadying my fists. "If you say so."

She took shallow breaths, fingers twitching at her sides like she wanted nothing more than to ball them up and unleash them on me. This was the angriest I'd ever seen her. I caught a look of the absolute fury and pain on her face before she covered it all with a calm mask. She slipped the mask on her face with years of experience, but her eyes told the whole story. I could still make out the white hot anger simmering underneath it. It was so much that I was half expecting for the books lying around on the table around us to start bursting into flames. But she reined it in like she always did, and jabbed an angry finger at the entrance of the library.

"Go."

"Yes, Your Majesty." I sketched a bow, feeling proud that I had managed to annoy her in that way if not a little bad. On some level, I related to her deeply. We were the same people, on different sides of the coin. I could feel her icy blue gaze burning holes into my neck.

I saluted her on my way out.

* * *

 _CIA Academy of Meh_

 _The Mess_

 _0730 hours_

"Hacker?" Zoe tried.

"Ew."

"Sharpshooter?"

"Long."

"Bullseye?"

"There's already a 'Bullseye'." I pointed him out in the mass of students eating in the Mess.

"Oh, yeah…" Zoe said, frowning. "Gun person?"

"Where did _that_ come from?"

"I don't know!" She threw her hands up in the air. "I can't think of a nickname for you, and you keep on refusing the other ones."

"Because you suggested 'Hawkeye.' I don't even shoot arrows." I pointed out disgustedly, although part of that was because of the gods-cursed food we were eating. The kitchen staff had whipped up some pancakes for us, although they seemed to be preserved refrigerated ones and had to be at least centuries of years old. I didn't want to know how long they'd been wasting away in the kitchens.

"In my defense, I only chose that one because it sounded cool."

"Zoe, no offense, but you and I have very different definitions of 'cool'."

Mike, Ben, and Warren, who were the onlookers on our conversation, all looked like they were in deep thought. They were all trying to come up with different nicknames for me, but Zoe was beating all of them to the punch.

"It has to be something computer or shooting related," Zoe had told them, "since that's what Charlie's best at."

"We could have two 'Bullseyes'," Mike suggested.

"That's confusing," I said.

"Target?" Ben piped up, looking at me for approval.

I couldn't help but admire his acting skills, to a degree. He was acting like he'd always had toward me, even though facing that one of your barely-friends was a SPYDER agent. There was no bitterness in his expression, just the friendly look that had always been there. I could barely tell that this was the same person who had stared at me with betrayed puppy-dog eyes last night when Erica told him who I was, really. I was still trying to find a way to get him to trust me again, and then kill him. I couldn't imagine the pain he would feel after that. To trust the same person twice, and to be betrayed by that person twice. But I had to focus on my own assignment; I couldn't risk feeling bad for the target. My assignment _had_ to be completely without any complications, in order for my record to be perfect.

At his pathetic try, it was Zoe who shook her head. "That's weird."

"What about 'Omega'?" Warren suggested.

Zoe made a face. "What's that supposed to represent?"

"I don't know." Warren shrugged. "I thought it sounded cool."

Typical Warren. I sighed and returned to my breakfast.

I was the only one at the table who was attempting to digest the pancakes, only because I was determined to get something, _anything_ , in my stomach after barely eating the night before. Plan A had been trying to make them soggy with lots of expired syrup, but that had failed quickly. Now I was slicing through the pancake with my foot long stabbing-people knife and making little progress. In fact, it was my knife that was getting dull, and the pancake was putting up a mighty fight. I eventually gave up and chucked the pancake at some poor newbie's head. My aim was spot-on. The pancake, although it could also pass as a slab of marble, nailed the first year's head and stuck on there, thanks to the syrup.

The newbie yelped in pain and indignant horror, his hand reaching back to pry the pancake from his hair. His fellow spies seated around him snickered. Some friends they were. The newbie turned around to see who had caused the crime, but I had already turned back, pretending to hunch over my tray. I laughed lightly, ignoring the mix of awed and confused reactions I got from Zoe, Mike, Ben, and Warren.

"That was mean," Zoe told me disapprovingly.

 _One, two, three—_ I counted in my head.

Warren predictably said: "What Zoe said." He gave me a look that was exactly mimicking the one Zoe gave me. It was creepy. "That was uncalled for."

"No, it wasn't," Mike laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. "It was hilarious!"

"Don't be a jerk," Zoe whacked him upside the head, and he scowled at her.

"Hey!"

"You're a jerk," Warren echoed.

" _Hey_!" Now Mike whacked Warren upside the head. The latter tried to realitate, but Mike was too fast for him. He ducked and pushed Warren's head down into the stack of pancakes.

"Guys, guys!" Zoe yelled, pushing them off of each other. Mike sat back up, regaining his perfect posture and picking at his pancakes like nothing had happened. Warren picked up the remaining shards of his dignity and rubbed his forehead, which was pink from being bashed into his rock-hard pancakes. Zoe rolled her eyes. " _Boys_."

"Still a jerk," Warren muttered darkly as Zoe helped him up.

Ben was shaking his head at me, looking like he was conflicted about what to think and at the same time, angry at me. "Was that pancake throwing thing really necessary?"

"I was teaching the newbie the element of surprise. Next time he'll be expecting it," I said easily. "And also I was testing my aiming skills."

"That reminds me!" Mike said. "Going back to the nickname topic, I think your nickname should be—"

"You know that kids show," I interrupted. "Phineas and Germ?"

Mike frowned at me. "Actually, that's not what I was—"

"Phineas and _Ferb_!" Warren corrected me passionately.

We all looked at him in unison, weirded out that he was so excited by this kids show. Warren shrugged and went red. "My brothers watch it a lot." He said it in a tone that said that he was clearly lying and trying to hide it by pinning the blame on his siblings. I was doubtful that said siblings even existed.

" _Right_ ," Ben said slowly.

"Anyway," I said, moving on from the awkward silence that had descended on our group, "speaking of that kids show, I was thinking maybe my nickname should be Captain Awesome." I was met with blank stares. "You know, less spy-like and more nickname-like. I mean, I'm not picky. We could also do Cookie Monster or Babbity Rabbity."

More blank stares.

"Seriously? You guys have never read _Harry Potter_?" I shook my head. "You people have no soul."

"What does the nickname 'Captain Awesome' have to do with Phineas and Ferb?" Warren asked finally, looking beyond confused.

"I have no idea," I shrugged. "I just wanted a change of topic."

"Let's think about the nickname 'Sprinkles'," I said, picking a name at random when no one else spoke up. "Let's take a vote. On the count of three, anyone who disagrees says 'Nay' and anyone who thinks the opposite, say 'Yea'. Okay, one...three! Yea."

"Yea," everyone else chorused in mild confusion.

"Nay," Warren said.

I looked at him. "Warren is outvoted by everyone else. Sprinkles it is!"

* * *

 _Academy of Espionage_

 _Shooting Area_

 _2000 hours_

"Okay, now show me your shooting form."

Ben raised his gun at the target. And didn't move.

"No, you need to move your feet towards the target. Like _this_. And don't falter. Your fingers have to wrap around the gun like _this_. Nope, that's not it."

Ben followed my instructions obediently, although a tad bit warily. I was not going easy on him. He emptied out his clip like he had done the last few times. I closed my eyes and heard the telltale signals that he was missing the target again. I refused to let him move closer to the target, because in real life the enemy was not going to stand still at five feet away and allow him to aim a clumsy shot at their head.

Ben voice said, "I clipped the last one."

"Yay," I said dully.

Ben sighed. "I suck at this."

I kept silent, not wanting to lie to him. I just ordered him to reload and gave him a few more tips. He shot again. One of the bullets found their way to the target, but the rest flew right into the other targets. I sighed. Tonight was the night that Ben and I were meeting Erica at the library to have another one of our interrogations. The librarian was not a good librarian. According to Erica, the woman was an ex-spy that had dropped out of the Academy and always left the door open. But it was a couple hours before that, so I was trying another tactic to get him to trust me: teaching him how to shoot properly. It was a trial and error thing. The one thing I was not good at was teaching. I had zero patience when it came to teaching. For me, shooting was an instinctive thing. I didn't need someone to _tell_ me how to hold a gun. The instructor would show me, I copied, and BAM! Bullseye. Simple as that.

Not for Ben. He was a natural— at missing the target. Even if I held his arms and the gun in his hands the correct way, the second I moved away he would fire in the opposite direction. Not that he wasn't a good student—he was the patient and calm one. His aim would be perfect, thanks to his "Level 10" math skills. As geeky as it sounded, it was really helpful when it came to aiming and the trajectory and all that. But the second he released, he would be thrown by the force of the gun and miss. There was no way for me to correct that. Not to mention, his form was god-awful. It seemed like the gun instructor had thrown him a gun and told him, "Here's the trigger, now shoot at that target" without giving him any tips on how to do said action.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

To my utter shock, Ben's bullets tore into the target this time. They were nowhere near the bullseye, but at least he'd hit it. But Ben wasn't celebrating like I was inside. He was looking dejected at where his bullets had found their mark. The words "Great job" were halfway out of my mouth before I realized that Ben had hit the spot two targets from his aiming point.

He cringed when I studied the damage. "I know. I'm terrible at this."

"Yes, you are," I agreed bluntly, making his shoulders droop even more. "But no one's ever taught you any of this. Here, I know what your problem is. Do it this way." I adjusted his arms again. My hand fixed his grip on the gun.

He shivered at my touch, even though he tried to hide it. I froze from where I was moving his fingers, wondering if his reaction was a bad thing. Did that mean that he didn't like people touching him? No, that couldn't be— I saw his friends touch him all the time. Then was it...I batted the thought away. That couldn't be. Ben had a massive crush on Erica. And he knew I was a SPYDER agent. I shook my head internally and blamed it on hormones.

I continued until his posture and position was perfect, and then gave him the signal to shoot. "Except this time, aim slightly to the left and downwards. I think your mathematical things are tripping you up. You're focusing too much on your calculations that your timing and speed is all wrong. Just look at the target."

Ben looked at me. "Wait, what?"

"Don't look at me." I tilted his head back to where he was aiming at. Again, I saw that shudder. It was so slight that no one without hyperactive senses would have noticed it, but I did instantly. "Look at your target. Just shoot."

He emptied the clip. I watched in dawning disappointment as the evidence that I was a horrible teacher became clearer and clearer. He missed this time, even worse than the others. I was so sure that my advice was going to help him, but I was wrong.

Just when I was beginning to give up hope, he shot again.

The bullet seemed to move in slo-mo, speeding toward the target. It was his last bullet. I saw Ben in my peripheral vision, lowering his arms and looking toward his shot in hope. But my heart had already sank. I knew that the shot would miss the target, and I was good about those things. My prediction rate was 100%. Ben's shot went forward and forward and—

It bounced off the floor and missed the target. Again.

I patted his back, feeling more disappointed than I should have. "Sorry, Ben." For some reason I felt like I had failed him. Not in that _sorry-my advice-failed_ kind of fail, but the _I'm-plotting-to-betray-you-and-all-your-friends_ kind of fail. And I was just teaching him how to shoot correctly, not killing him. Yet, anyway. Why did I feel so bad, then? I tried to convince myself that giving him bad advice was not the same as killing him.

But now that I was thinking about the subject of killing Ben, the thought of pointing a gun at his head seemed more ridiculous than it had been at the start. Ben was just an innocent kid who SPYDER had a grudge against. Sure, he was good at math and thwarting SPYDER's plans and a dork that was terrible at gun weaponry, but he did nothing wrong. He was handpicked by the CIA. And he was doing good in the Academy, as far as I could tell. Killing him after knowing him just made no sense in my mind.

Then the other part of my brain flared up. The part that was contaminated by SPYDER. Wait, contaminated? No, _made better_ is more like it. I had killed countless other people for SPYDER. They made me an assassin, a thief, all those bad things that I was supposed to believe were bad things if I had been raised the ordinary way. But I wasn't. Because of SPYDER, I finally fit in. I got a home, better skills, cooler gadgets, and more of a family than I would have with any other boring parents. I was raised and trained to be on the opposite, the "bad side" as the CIA called it, as Ben.

But, the good side of my brain protested, that was because I had never got to experience being on the "good guys". Would it really be that different from what I was accustomed to? But in SPYDER's point of view, the good guys were just the bad guys. So if I were part of the good guys, would I be a bad guy too? What did I even want? I didn't want to be a traitor, backstabbing CIA agent. They were uptight and not as fun, but SPYDER's methods were maybe a little evil.

I understood why the Director of SPYDER didn't want me to do these types of missions when I was younger. Infiltrating seemed much more interesting when I was six, but children could be turned to the other side easily. They were malleable and gullible, which was why SPYDER trained me to be the opposite. Infiltrating and pretending to be one of the good guys played with your brain. It made you want to be a good guy too. It made you think you were one of them, ache for another possibility. The one thing that differentiated me from the rest of the SPYDER agents was that I had never experienced anything else.

The others had turned to SPYDER willing. I had never had a choice in the matter. So was _that_ good or bad?

Or maybe I was overthinking the entire issue.

"Charlie! Charlie!"

That was Ben's voice. It snapped me out of my daze of overthinking things. He was waving his hand in my face, beaming like Christmas had come early.

"What?" I asked, shaking myself out of it.

I shouldn't have even been thinking of those things. Those were dangerous waters that I didn't need to be tainted by. I tried plastering a normal-ish smile on my face.

"Look!"

My eyes wandered where he was pointing at and widened. There, at the target, were Ben's bullets. The correct target. And they were all near the bullseye. I blinked, shook my head, and blinked again. Had he actually managed to hit near the center? Was I daydreaming again?

"Wow, Ben. That's...fantastic!"

He smiled at me again, brightly. It was like staring at the sun for a moment. He stepped closer, and I saw the hug coming. Every cell in my body screamed at me to move away. But I watched his arms spread wider and wider, and I did nothing to stop him as he hugged me.

I was doing what SPYDER strictly forbidden: getting closer to the target.


	10. Chapter 10: Mr Hail doesn't like me

**GUESS WHO'S ALIVE?**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Stuart Gibb's stuff.**

* * *

 _Library_

 _2200 hours_

Ben and Erica was sitting across the table from me. Erica was glaring at me coldly, while Ben was playing with his hands awkwardly. It was nice that they hadn't put me in handcuffs, but I had the feeling that they were ganging up on me. I had a pen in one hand and was scribbling on a piece of paper, narrating what I was writing out loud.

"My conditions are this: You won't expose me to the CIA, or any other agency. You will also not arrest me after this. You promise to never tape this conversation, or reveal this conversation to anyone else. And in return, I will answer some of your questions. A few of which I will deny, but anything I will say and do with be entirely truthful."

I wrote the words on paper and drew three even lines underneath. I signed on one of them and gave it to Ben without looking at him. He scribbled his name on it. I was a little tense about the 'us' thing since the hug. It wasn't a thing that most people would have been uncomfortable with— hugs were normal, I think. Did friends give each other hugs? Did family? How often? I had no idea.

Don't get the wrong idea. Don't feel all sorry for me because _aw, you don't have friends or family?_ It's not that sad. Plenty of kids don't have family. The way I grew up, I'm more stiff about physical stuff than most people are. SPYDER, being the evil— not even going to deny it—organization that it is, isn't big on hugs and stuff. No time for that kind of thing when you're busy hatching evil plans that get you money and one of those little chocolate drinking fountains that rich people have.

It didn't matter anyway, because Ben had given no indication that he noticed my coldness. We had continued taking shots at the targets, but the silence was too much for me. He only amicably agreed when I sputtered out a random string of words about it being time to go meet Erica in the library.

It had been too close. I resolved to be extra distant in the future so that he would get the point.

Ben passed the sheet to Erica, who presumably gave it a long look. I had no doubt she was wondering what kind of loopholes in my lousy statement.

"The paper's not going to bite, Hale," I said testily.

"I know that," she snapped. "This is stupid. We'd be better off using a polygraph than this scrap of paper."

I clenched my fists. I was half expecting something like that from Erica. She was always criticizing or disagreeing with me for something. It seemed that my very existence made her mad. It was like a game to her, how much she could find holes in my ideas and offer simple but better solutions— infuriating. But today she seemed a little more negative than usual. I couldn't think of anything that I had done today to really piss her off, other than purposefully sitting next to her at mealtimes. But that was just to annoy her a little. So she was just being mad for no reason.

And for one, I thought that my idea was perfectly sensible.

"Oh, because those are so easy to find?"

"I'm just saying, how can we trust you to _not_ lie to us?"

I _had_ thought of that, but I didn't know what else to use. I tried baiting her. "Are you a spy or not? I don't know about you, but when I was in SPYDER they taught us how to tell if someone's lying."

Ben stiffened at the mention of SPYDER. Seriously, that boy needed to learn how to hide his emotions. How did he even make it the first month as a double agent in SPYDER's headquarters?

"Of course I know how to tell if someone's lying." Erica sniffed in distaste, like she thought my question was unnecessary. (Because duh, she's a Hale, and duh, all Hales are living, breathing natural lie detectors from the moment they were born. Duh, isn't that basic knowledge?)

Even I knew when to give something up. "Will you just sign the freaking paper?"

Ben sighed. "Erica, c'mon."

She cut him a glare. "How about it says, 'Based on the information you have given us, we will decide what to do with you'."

"Do I get to negotiate? Or are you just going to slap the handcuffs on me and put me in an underground cell where I can never see anyone for three hundred years?"

"We'll be fair," she said, looking like she would much rather do the things I had suggested.

I wasn't super reassured by that, but I pushed the paper closer to her and she signed it elegantly. I stared at the paper for a moment, then gave an affirming nod. I folded the paper up and placed it in my pocket. "Right. Now we're set. Go on, ask your questions."

Obviously I didn't give them everything they needed to know about SPYDER.

(Ben, the nerd that he was, had compiled a freaking list of questions to use for the interrogation, which Erica of course promptly shoved in the paper shredder.) I refused to disclose any information about my identity, but I did answer some questions. Erica Hale knew that I wasn't being completely honest, but she couldn't complain after the paper she had just signed.

I told them a few of SPYDER's safehouses and identities. Erica wrote them all down in a spiral notebook, just to prove that she wasn't kidding around. I guess it wasn't a big deal. Once I got back to HQ, they would bust the guys out and move the safehouses. I rattled off a bunch of excuses about why I was at the Academy, all of which had somewhat of a truth to them.

I'll admit that my heart wasn't completely in the interrogation. Half of my mind was focused on answering questions, half of it was on something completely different. I was thinking about how good SPYDER was at doing things like that, and they did it _fast_.

That was one of the things I liked best about the agency. Efficient, simple, discreet. Much more organized than the sloppy work the CIA had their agents do. Including Ben in their plans was their only big break, and even then, he was an inexperienced teenager who knew nothing about spying.

But all of that made me think— Ben _was_ just a teenager. He was the worst shot I had ever encountered, and he was at best mediocre for a spy. He just so happened to excel at doing complicated calculations in his head, and yet he completed every single mission he had ever been given. A lot to accomplish for a boy that had only been at Spy School for three years.

I had to take a few things into account— such as the existence of Erica Hale and the help of his friends, but all in all what Ben Ripley had done was pretty impressive. Certainly nothing that your average Joe Schmoe could have done. So was it pure luck that the CIA stumbled upon him? Or could _anyone_ become a spy with the correct training and a decent amount of luck on their side?

Honestly, the Academy of Espionage system of picking out kids seemed really stupid. Anyone could be a spy, with the right training. The only reason normal kids weren't picked were because they weren't born into the right family, or they hadn't had the right training. The CIA couldn't pick anyone to be in the Academy, but how did they even pick out these kids? They had to have looked through millions of kids' records, and who wanted to go through the trouble of doing that?

SPYDER was a lot more better about that. They specifically picked kids who felt bitter against the world, kids who had a better chance of turning to the other side. There was a select group of people who recruited kids. The kids were put through rigorous training. Most of them were let go because they didn't show the right potential, but all threatened by SPYDER's best lawyers to not tell the truth.

My case was a little different, as I had been personally been recruited by the director of SPYDER herself and was placed under the training of many of SPYDER's greatest operatives. More on that later.

In fact, the more that I thought about it, I realized that SPYDER was so much better than the CIA in so many ways. When I consciously became aware I was thinking that, I felt such relief that it was overwhelming. What with all the hug and all of the getting closer to Ben, I was afraid that I had lost my loyalty and would screw up the whole assignment.

But… I guess I knew what Ben and Erica saw in the CIA and all. All of the plotting and malicious plans about evil organizations kind of throw you off when you get really into the business. I could understand why SPYDER had wanted Ben Ripley on their side so badly.

He was naive, easy to turn. He wasn't half bad at thinking the way a spy thought, and he had a few skills that would be super handy in the field. At the same time, he had a firm set of morals that prevented him from doing things evil. That part was a bit of a hinderance, but what made it better was that we could easily trick him in thinking that what we were doing was the good thing. But that was in the beginning. The main reason SPYDER stopped trying to turn him(other than the whole annoying-figuring-out-our-plans thing) was that he was no longer who he was when he had began.

 _And I respected him for that._

I groaned loudly, successfully interrupting one of Erica's more pressing questions. And this was what I had come to. No matter what I thought about, no matter how random, it would always lead back to Ben Ripley.

Erica gave me an odd look. "Is something wrong?"

I remembered that I had groaned loud enough for her to hear, and mumbled a quick apology about being too tired to focus.

Ben nodded, appearing a little out of it himself. His eyes were bleary. He didn't even need to glance at the time as he said, "Yeah, it's nearly one. I think we should cap off the questioning, Erica."

She, on the other hand, looked alert and utterly awake. Her pen was still poised on her spiral notebook. She had scribbled down at least three pages of notes, all in shorthand writing that I could barely understand. "What? No, we still have time. We should take advantage of that as much as we can."

"I second that," I said, exaggerating a yawn behind my hand. "With Ben, I mean." Erica looked ready to argue her point like she always did, but I was already halfway out of my seat. "The vote's two against one, Hale. See you in the morning."

"It's already in the morning," Ben felt the need to say.

I thrust open the doors and walked out without my customary dramatic one liner. I _was_ telling the truth about being tired.

The pillow in my dorm was the best thing I'd seen all day.

* * *

 _The next day…_

 _The Academy_

 _Mess Hall_

 _1300 hours_

"Miss _Anderson_!" Mr. Hail barked. "Remind me again, why did you decide that pranking a teacher was okay?"

"Does there need to be a reason?" I responded drearily. "That ugly shirt should be enough."

The Spy School version of detention was to a) get beat up by attackers, b) scrub the rooms and the Mess Hall clean, c) something worse, or d) all of the above. None of the above had worked for me, because Mr. Hail, the main instructor on hand to hand combat, felt that I needed a fate much worse.

Mr. Hail was one of the newest but meanest teachers in Spy School. He had arrived about three weeks ago, but he was no newbie. He was middle aged, tough as nails, and bitter from being "let go" from the field agents a few weeks prior. No one knew the reason behind it, but a lot of students assumed that he had one of the biggest screw ups in history to have been demoted to teacher.

Predictably, he took his anger out on the students. He usually punished students with hours of grueling detention for the most mediocre things, and worse, the principal didn't do a thing about it.

"Most likely because he's scared out of his wits," Zoe told me once.

Along with having to miss mealtimes writing lines because of being a "smart aleck" and being "disrespectful", I got to get beat up in front of the class while he "taught a class". By that, he meant that he would make a fool out of me in front of the Mess Hall.

Unfortunately, I was a mess. I had woken up with a itches everywhere and a dizzy nauseous feeling. I didn't understand the sickness; Not once in my entire SPYDER career had I ever gotten sick. Being exposed to so much, I had built up an impressive immune system. It was foreign to me.

The "being sick" thing was partially to blame for my bad mood. I don't know the exact reason Mr. Hail had ticked me off so much that morning. I had always been aware that he was an a-hole, but never to the point where I decided it was reasonable to make a quick "bathroom" trip to the cafeteria and give him a little taste of lunch that day via dumping the entire thing on his head. Maybe it was the way he shouted things when they hardly needed to be shouted, or how he always jabbed his finger in the air when he wanted to make a point, or how unbearably stupid his 'stache looked with his _punchable_ face.

The worst thing was, not only was Mr. Hail managing to beat me up in a pulp with no trouble whatsoever, I was giving in to him. I had to say this about Mr. Hail. He was clearly a professional— I could tell why he had been a field agent before— even though he had a very different way of teaching. Joshua Hallal would have said that his movements were sloppy and his fighting technique needed work, but I didn't think it was half bad.

Of course, I didn't think that at the time, as I was trying to avoid getting knocked out.

"Wrong answer again. I can see that children here can get by with insulting a teacher and pranking one? Not anymore."

He started for me again. I tried sidestepping him feebly, my vision swimming, but he lurched forward quickly. He swept my feet from under me and landed hard, swift punches to me. I bent over double, resisting the urge to lie on the floor pathetically and throw up. "The correct answer, Miss Anderson, was because you wanted _attention_! Well, you've got it now!"

As I cursed my sickness, I spotted Ben's confused and worried face in the crowd of students who had gathered around to see the untouchable, good-at-everything Charlotte Anderson get pounded. Zoe was right next to him, I think shouting out encouragement, and Chip was doing that too. Erica was near the middle of it all, the only person not being swallowed by the crowd as everyone had given her a few feet of personal space. Her face was unreadable. She had abandoned her pitiful salad to watch the punishment with everyone else, which both irritated and surprised me.

"Let me ask you a question," I said, voice cool and commanding and full of the bravado I didn't feel as the throbbing pain continued, "Mr. Hail. Why are you doing _this_? Does beating up a girl thirty years younger than you make you feel better? Do you need that much of an ego boost? It's already big enough to suffocate everyone else."

He steamed visibly. "You're a new student. Are you sure you're qualified to insult a field agent who's been doing this for longer than you've been alive?"

I held up a finger for silence. "Don't you mean _ex_ -field agent, Mr. Hail? And for the record, yeah. I think I'm more than qualified to put you in your place. Although I think your _boss_ already did that for me. Everyone knows you had to fail epically to be demoted this much. That's an achievement in itself, Mr. Hail."

"They told me you were a good fighter," Mr. Hail sneered, angered by my remark but not dumb enough to let it get to him. "They were wrong."

I ground my teeth, fighting the nausea about to come. The feelings of I'm-going-to-hurl came in short, dizzying bursts, and had happened sporadically for most of the day. I whirled out of the way as he ran toward me once again, and innocently tripped him as he tried to swipe a hand at my face. He caught himself before he fell but bounded back before landing a hit on me.

"So, how do you want to do this? Do want to talk, then fight, then talk again? Or with a few breaks in between as well? You're a little red in the face," I added with false concern. "Do you need a bottle of water of something?"

It was the wrong time to say something like that, because my head started pounding and I started itching like crazy at that moment. I could take on a lot of things. Sicknesses was not one of them. That, combined with the nausea and inability to breathe properly, cause my rhythm to falter a little, and Mr. Hail saw his opening. He stepped forward and before I could do anything to stop him, he was going full teacher mode on me. He kept on fighting while barking commands like, "Block!" and "Faster!"

The audience had mysteriously gone silent. Maybe even they thought that what Mr. Hail was doing was going too far. Ben had dagger eyes, looking like he wanted to stop it. I shook my head at him.

"Hah!" Mr. Hail taunted. "Not so mouthy now, are you?"

For some reason, I wasn't able to dodge the punches. _Stop being stupid_ , I told my body. My body would not listen. Again and again it failed to move as quick as my mind was.

Mr. Hail knew how to punch. His were solid and knocked the wind out of me. I was pretty sure he was aiming not to get some serious damage, but I wasn't sure about that the way his eyes were glowering. My cheeks were burning in shame. I couldn't remember the last time someone had made this much of a fool out of me.

At one point he might've been giving a gloating speech. I don't mean to be overly dramatic about this, but it was _painful_. I was too immersed in the pain to listen on, as it felt like my brain was being dissected with knives by weird mad scientists. My face was hot. Sharp pains coursed through my body to the punches. His hand collided with my head, and that was it. Apparently my head was too weaking to take it, so…

I bent over and threw up over his shoes. It was gross. I don't need to describe it. You're better off not knowing. As they say, ignorance is bliss. It was horrifying. Humiliating. Yet Mr. Hail's exclamations and horror nearly took the pain away. Nearly.

I didn't remember falling to the floor, but the next thing I knew, the cold floor was pressed up against my burning face. My knees hit the ground first, then my entire body followed. The punches stopped, and murmuring broke out through the crowd. I don't know how long I stayed on the floor— it all passed like a blur.

I distinctly remember the principal bursting in the Mess Hall, yelling about something or another. Erica, for some reason, was right by his side which was odd because the last time I saw her she was somewhere in the crowd…

"Stop this right this moment!"

But there was no need for that, because Mr. Hail had already stopped. He leaned over me, his mouth moving with angry words. Erica pushed him away and leaned into my face. I caught a whiff of her perfume, whatever that lavender and gunpowder scent was, and my hand raised as if to bat the smell away. I wasn't in the mood for Erica Hale at the moment.

She patted me on the head a little, which was peculiar. Was this Erica's nicer twin? She seemed apologetic.

"I didn't know," she whispered which absolutely _did not_ explain things.

"You—what?"

Wait. Was she trying to say that _she_ had done this? I felt a foreign spurt of anger, not really thinking rationally. Of course she had! She'd poisoned me or something and now I was going to die because of her! Stupid Erica Hale, stupid CIA! I should have known not to trust them!

I got to my feet shakily and lunged at her.

Erica caught me and steadied me, gripping my forearms tightly. A familiar exasperated glimmer had entered her eye. "Stop that, you're going to—"

I growled. "Stop that, you—"

Okay, so I'm going to cut that out. I might've said some not-so PG things to the Ice Queen of Spy School. Whatever. I regret nothing. In my defense, I was feeling like crap. I probably had a fever, I was itching everywhere for some reason, I was suffering from a multitude of bruises, and I felt like I was on a deathbed. Besides, she kind of deserved it anyway. What happened next might make you a little more sympathetic for me.

In the middle of my sentence, she injected a tranquiliser in me.

SHE FREAKING STUCK A NEEDLE IN ME.

What, does she like carry those things around or something? Who carries a tranquiliser with them on a day to day basis anyway?

"Are you—word deleted—ing serious?"

And with that, I plunged into Dreamland.

* * *

 **Little rushed, just typed it all out in a night cause I felt super guilty. Sorry if it moved a liiittle too fast for you. I just realized I apologize way too much in my author's notes. I have midterms this week and a bunch of other performances and ack I've just been stressed out. Please don't take that as an excuse, you guys probably don't care anyway. Again, sorry for the wait.**


	11. Chapter 11: The Plan

**Hellloooooo. It's been a while.**

* * *

 _Academy of Espionage_

 _Med Bay_

 _1300 hours_

The last person I expected to see when I woke up, sitting next to my cot, was Mike Brezinski.

Okay, maybe that was a tad bit dramatic. If, say, the President of the United States had popped in to visit, I would have been more shocked. Or if it was Beyonce, or Elvis, or perhaps even that one cashier in Walmart who yelled at me to get out because I was "disturbing the customers."

But there he was.

Don't get me wrong, Mike was a good guy.

I didn't know him that well. I had only talked to him when we were all sitting at the lunch table. He was one of Ben's friends, and Ben thought he was a good friend. Ben had a rather strong moral compass, so I figured Mike had to be a somewhat decent guy. But based on my impression of him, he seemed to be someone who always got what he wanted. Not that it was a bad thing; I respected that. He wasn't bad on the eyes, a little too flirty at times, really naive, and did he _have_ to flash that stupid wolf grin wherever he went… I forgot where I was going with this.

"What time is it?" I demanded, gaining Mike's attention.

Funnily enough, that was my go-to phrase when I woke up injured in an unfamiliar place. (It happens more than you think.) Not _where am I_ or _who are you_ , since I could probably figure out those things myself with pure observational skills. It was a habit forced on me by Joshua, who claimed that it was the safest question to ask when captured by the enemy.

"Whoa." Mike looked as surprised as I felt. "You're awake."

"No need to point out the obvious, Sherlock. And I asked you a question." I felt the tiniest bit bad for being so unpleasant, but Injured Me was not a Nice Me.

He pulled his phone out and checked the time. "Lunchtime. Students are probably at the Mess right now."

I took the chance to scope out my surroundings. It looked like I was in a med-bay of some kind. White walls, several cots, and the air smelled like antiseptic. It reminded me of the inside of a hospital room, which set me off. I wasn't a fan of those. In addition, there was a thin ratty blanket draped over my torso. The gesture was nice, but the blanket was not in the best shape and looked like it had not been washed in decades. I yanked it off and pulled myself into a sitting position. I could feel some bruises on my stomach twinge at the action, but I knew they'd heal in a few days.

"How does it feel?" Mike asked kindly.

"'Tis merely a flesh wound." I rolled my aching shoulders.

His eyebrows raised sardonically. "Was that a Monty Python reference?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, I heard it somewhere. How long was I out?"

"You were unconscious for two days. The medic had to sedate you a bunch because you kept on punching him in your sleep."

I tried for a remorseful expression, which didn't suit me. I didn't like how it felt. "That sounds like me."

He laughed a little. "It was kind of hilarious, actually. Is that normal for you?"

I shrugged in a way that could have meant yes or no. "We're spies, aren't we? It's kind of our job to be punching people in the face."

Mike shot me an admiring glance. "Yeah, but not like _that_."

"Reflex, I guess." I changed the topic quickly. "What happened to me?"

"Medic guy said you had a nasty allergic reaction to… well, I forgot what. It was a really long word with a lot of syllables. I'm sure he wrote it down somewhere." Mike gestured vaguely at the contents of the room. "Anyway, the punches Mr. Hail gave you didn't help too much either. He's absolutely crazy. Even the principal thought it was too harsh of a punishment." He switched to a happier tone as he added, "By the way, that prank you did was totally awesome. Dumping the cafeteria lunch on his head? _Classic_."

"Thanks," I said distractedly, only really processing half of his words.

An allergy was the reason I had been feeling so weak? It was because of an _allergy_? As far as I knew, I wasn't allergic to anything. (Although it wouldn't be a surprise if the cafeteria food had managed to poison me somehow.) I had a strong immune system and had never shown to be sensitive to anything I had been exposed to in the field. I shrugged the confusion off. I'd find it out later.

"Speaking of Mr. Hail, is he still on the job?"

"Unfortunately," Mike grumbled, then brightened. "But he's being demoted to weapons instructor assistant."

"Serves him right," I said blatantly. "What a jerk."

"Right?"

MIke and I made more pointless small talk, which was exhausting(how do people stand to do that on a regular basis?) but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something. I tried to backtrack. What had happened? My memories of the day were fuzzy. I remembered mouthing off to Hail, the dizziness, and—

"Erica stabbed me!"

Aaaaand there it was.

Mike took my sudden exclamation in stride. "Yeah, with a tranquilizer. They had to carry you away in a stretcher to get you in the med-bay. She also got the principal, somehow." Mike shook his head in disbelief. I could tell he was eager to tell me something I didn't know for once. His face reflected how exciting the entire event had been for him. "She basically saved your life. Man, I thought—"

I tuned him out. _But she hates me_ , I thought in confusion. Erica should have let me die. It's what I would have done, if I were in her shoes. I was an enemy agent, and letting my allergy take over would have been the easiest way to get rid of me. Unless she wanted a favor, and would use this to guilt me into helping.

I was so focused on this that it took me a second to realize that Mike was asking me a question. "What?"

"What do you think gave you an allergic reaction?" he repeated. "I mean, it wasn't peanuts or anything, right? It had to be pretty serious."

His comment spurred another thought. Maybe Erica only wanted me alive for answers. I already knew she was capable of slipping dangerous things into my drinks. SPYDER's tech was better than the CIA's, but there was a possibility that Erica might have gotten her hands on some kind of truth serum.

Of course, there was no such thing as a "potion of truth." But there _were_ medications that made the user loopy and more likely to reveal answers. Which was probably what Hale had been aiming for. Whether or not she knew that it would give me a severe allergic reaction was to be debated.

Mike was still waiting for my response.

"I don't know," I said confusedly, my mind still spiraling through possibilities. "I've never been allergic to anything." Another question popped into mind. "Hey, not to be rude or anything, but why are you here?"

"The medic had a family emergency," he said. I couldn't help but notice that he said it so smoothly that it sounded the way an expert liar would say something. "Spy school only has one, so I had to stay here and look after you."

Something about the way those selective words sounded together annoyed me. "I don't need looking after," I said, more defensively than I was intending.

"Well, you were unconscious and dying, so you didn't really have a choice." The words were harsh, but the way Mike said it made it sound like a joke. In fact, everything he said sounded like a joke. It probably had something to do with the easygoing tone of voice he had, and that wolf smile.

I crossed my arms over my chest. "I don't get why the principal decided to choose a student only in his first year in charge of, quote-unquote, _looking after_ me."

"Oh, he didn't choose me. I volunteered. It seemed like an easy way to get out of class. And all I had to do was slip you a few pills now and then, simple stuff. And," Mike said significantly, shaking a video game controller that I had just noticed was in his hand, "the med-bay is the only place here with a decent TV and, believe it or not, _Halo_."

"No way."

I did the math and quickly figured that _Halo_ was a video game of some sort. I put the right amount of surprise and awe in my voice, remembering that Mike was a regular student under the suspicion that I, too, was a regular student and not a SPYDER agent. I couldn't let him know that I had no clue what _Halo_ was. Being on the field constantly made no time for video games, or just games in general.

"Not to mention, the meals here are way better than food you get in the Mess." He gestured to a tray heaped with fast food. "It's cool being a spy and all, but you gotta admit, their food _sucks_. If this is what it takes to get a proper cheeseburger and fries here, then you have my permission to get yourself injured whenever you want."

"If I decide to get injured, I'll do it of my own accord."

He winked. "That's the way. Cheeseburger?" He held it out to me.

Looking at the burger, my stomach roared, reminding me that I hadn't eaten in two days. I was starving. I was so hungry that I had gotten to the point of not caring that he had already taken a bite of it. I took it greedily and shoved it in my mouth. _Wow_. After living off protein shakes and (for the last few months) barely edible food, this was a little slice of heaven.

I closed my eyes in pleasure, letting flavors explode in my mouth. I had forgotten what wonderful, delicious calories tasted like. "Okay, wow. That's amazing."

Mike snatched it back from me and took a bite. At my outrage, he defended himself through a mouthful of burger. "Better savor it while it lasts, right?" He split it in half and gave the larger half to me, which was kind of sweet.

For several moments we chewed in silence that wasn't awkward or tense. It was filled with the comfortableness that I usually couldn't get with anyone except for Joshua. But with Josh, the relationship was built out of mutual respect for each other's abilities and snark. With Mike, it was more subtle. He was direct and to the point, like me, and had a way of looking at life like it was all a joke.

His eyes lit up suddenly, like he had just remembered something. "Oh, yeah! I forgot to tell you. After the prank you pulled with Mr. Hail, the Mess is serving even cheaper food. Some of the students are flat-out refusing to eat it. Of course, I wouldn't know, since I've been living the luxury life here with you."

After he said that, I was smacked in the face with an idea. The fuzzy thought had been floating around in my mind for awhile now, but I had never put it into words until now. And it wasn't just one of my on-the-spot plans that I usually ended up winging. I had a gut feeling that it was an _incredible_ idea.

"Actually," I said with a sly smile, "I have a few ideas to fix that."

* * *

"There aren't any professors in the Mess right now, right?"

"No, they're all in their classrooms or in their separate housing," Mike confirmed.

"Perfect."

"What are you going to do?" he asked me as we entered the Mess.

Instead of answering him, I stood up on a table.

That gathered most of the attention in the Mess, which gave me the idea that people didn't normally jump on top of the tables in Spy School. But that was what I was going for.

I grabbed a megaphone, which was lying on a table for some reason, and shouted "PEOPLE!" That got _everyone_ 's attention.

After Mike had forged the medic's signature on the paper due for release, giving me the OK to go, I was able to change my clothing from the hospital robe to regular jeans and a tee. With lunch nearly over, I had to make my announcement nice and short.

I gave the room a quick sweep. Zoe was looking elated to see me. Warren was scowling at me for stealing away her attention. Ben looked mostly confused, as were most of the students in the Mess. Erica Hale (I made a mental note to give her a talk about stabbing people with tranquilizers without their consent later) had her nose in a book and was pointedly ignoring me. I had stepped on an older girl's lunch with my boots, and she was shouting at me in angry tones.

"Jeez, I'm sorry," I told her. She paid no heed and kept on yelling with a ferocity like I had just ran over her grandmother.

"Hey, that's Charlie!" Zoe's voice hollered, and started cheering like I was Beyonce and this was a concert.

The rest of the students started cheering as well. But not because they were happy to see me— they were just following suit because Zoe had. And no one wanted to look like they didn't belong here, so their only choice was to cheer.

"QUIET! QUIET!" I yelled into the mic.

Hearing me, Zoe yelled, "QUIET! QUIET!" until everyone got the message.

I waved my hands in the air, trying to signal for everyone to stop talking. "Everyone, I know it's very thrilling to see I'm alive. But I have a very important announcement that I need to make."

I tried to channel the authority Josh used to talk to the lesser operatives at SPYDER. It worked. Soon the entirety of the Mess stilled and focused on what I was saying. The girl whose lunch I had stepped on was no longer yelling at me. Even Erica had lifted her head from the book and was looking at me with no expression whatsoever.

"Great. I'm going to start this by saying that I take full responsibility for the awful food you're eating right now. Because of my prank against Mr. Hail, you are all forced to eat this garbage, wasted, excuse for a food."

Okay, it may have been a little dramatic and/or over the top. So what? There were a few scattered laughs around the room, unable to tell if I was joking or not. My tone was completely serious as I continued.

"But no worries! I have a solution," I declared. "I, for one, am not going to eat this… whatever this is. And neither will you, not if you have any regard for your well being. So we're just going to take matters into our own hands. Whoever is willing to help can meet me at the front gate at oh-one-hundred hours. If you have no part in this, then you can keep on eating the school food. But if you want good _edible_ food for a change, you know where to go tonight. And remember: this information doesn't leave this room." I gave everyone a threatening look. "Or else."

I jumped down from the table. "That's all!"

Mike took the megaphone from my hand with an awestruck look on his face. "Did you just do that?"

I was unable to stop a grin from getting onto my face. "I think so."

People were getting out of their seats and heading to me, bombarding me with questions. I was swamped by clambering students wanting to know what I was planning, what did I think I was doing, how we were going to do it. I told them, "Come and find out!"

"All right!" I waved everyone off. "Not responding to any questions now!"

The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. Students separated off into groups, muttering about me and my plan. The air was buzzing with excitement. I was slightly in shock of my actions myself. Was this how celebrities felt after they were mobbed by fans? It wasn't a bad feeling.

I saw Warren, Ben, Zoe, and even Chip rushing over to me.

Chip clapped me on the back, hard. "First day out of the med bay and you're already making plans to defeat the system. Not bad, Anderson."

Ben was the first to ask her, "Are you okay?"

"Fine."

Once I assured all of them I was fine, they pestered me with questions.

"What's your plan?"

"Why did you do this?"

"How are we going to do it?"

"Whoa, guys. Anderson doesn't need all of you pestering her the second she sees you." It was Chip who said that, surprisingly. Then he turned to me and said threateningly, "But you _better_ tell us what this is about."

Zoe nodded, her head bobbing up and down, her green eyes so wide with eagerness that I thought they might explode. "We're your friends, Charlie. We deserve to know."

I hummed lightly. "That depends. Are you all in?"

"Whatever we're doing, I'm so in!" Zoe told me excitedly. "It sounds more interesting than what we normally do." She gave me a reprimanding look. "Wait, it's not anything illegal, is it?"

"Depends on your definition of illegal."

Warren yelped in horror. "We shouldn't do this if it's even the _slightest_ bit illegal."

I shrugged. "Your choice, dude. I couldn't care less what you think, as long as you don't tell anyone."

"He won't," Zoe said with confidence. "Warren may be cowardly, but he's no snitch."

Warren looked like he disagreed with this fact, but wisely stayed silent.

Ben jumped in. "Not that I'm all on board with this, but Charlie, just _tell_ us already." The thrill of the plan was getting to him as well, even if he played the golden boy I-follow-all-the-rules-24/7 card. His eyes were lighting up.

I sighed, like _okay, fine, you persuaded me,_ but I was also dying to tell them about my genius plan. "We're going to steal a car, drive to town, buy a bunch of food, and refuse to eat the cafeteria food while we eat the good stuff."

They all stared at me. Zoe was the first to exclaim, "Charlie, that is—"

Warren said, "A terrible idea!" the exact same time she said "Genius!"

"Thank you, Zoe." I beamed at her, while Warren sputtered in indignation.

"We'll return the cars, won't we?" Ben asked.

To be honest, I didn't care either way, but for the sake of Ben joining, I said, "Of course we will." If Ben joined, more students would join. Students here respected him for going on missions.

"Uh, question." Mike raised his hand. "How are we going to pay for all of this? Buying food for all of these people will take more than five bucks." He looked at me suspiciously. "Unless you're an heir to a hidden fortune and you've been holding out on us this entire time?"

"That's ridiculous, Brezinski," Chip dismissed.

"It is ridiculous," I seconded. "And to answer your question, we will be doing it with the principal's credit card."

Chip frowned. "But we don't have—"

I smiled deviously. "Yeah, we do." I pulled out a shiny card from my pocket. I had brought it along, in case I needed it for proof. "And also—" I wiggled my fingers. "Hello? Awesome, amazing hacker here? With a decent laptop, I could hack into his bank account, easy as pie."

"Isn't that illegal?" Chip asked, but he was grinning in a way that told me he didn't really care.

I thought about how to answer that. "Sort of. But if you think about it, we're doing it for a noble cause."

"What noble cause?" Ben asked skeptically.

"The noble cause of not poisoning children," I said, rather calmly and patiently in my opinion.

"We won't get caught?" Warren asked twitchily.

"Of course we won't get caught. Unless some rock headed idiot decides to snitch on us." I cut him a hard glance.

"I won't snitch," he said defensively.

"So if you've got this all figured out," Ben started, "why make a huge announcement in front of everyone in the Mess?"

For a second, I was annoyed at all of the questioning. God, what was with it with these people and having such good morals? Why couldn't they just accept the plan for what it was— a goddamn great plan— instead of playing twenty questions with me? But then I realized that if I were them, I would probably be doing the same. I didn't like being roped into something that I knew nothing about.

"I'm hoping that more than a few people show up," I said honestly. "So that a) we can get more people who know how to drive and hijack a car, b) we can make more of a point to the people to serve us better food."

Mike nodded in understanding. "So _this_ is what it's all about."

"Exactly," I said. "So, now that everything's been answered, no more questions! This will all be explained at the meeting anyway. Are all of you in?"

"Definitely," Zoe said enthusiastically.

"Definitely," Chip chorused.

Mike nodded. "Yeah."

Warren shrugged. "I have no choice."

I looked at Ben. "What about you?"

He looked like he was struggling. He distrusted me, I knew that, and he was probably wondering if I was planning something devious. If I wanted to kill them or something. But that wasn't my intention. I _could_ just kill Ben here and now, but I needed his friends to believe that I was innocent first. I needed to build trust. It would be stupid if I killed him in plain sight, but it would put me on the CIA's radar. I had to make it look like SPYDER had taken me as well, and so this was not part of my mission.

I wished I could tell him all of that, but his friends were standing there and looking at him. Zoe was persuading him to go. Ben looked like he was still deciding.

"Fine," he said finally. "I'll go." He gave me a long look. "I just hope we don't end up dying at the end."

To his friends, this was a lighthearted joke. To me, it was a message. I wasn't sure what it was exactly, but it was Ben Ripley's way of telling me that no matter how many shooting lessons I gave him, no matter how many attempts I took at making friends, he still didn't trust me.

Mike started. "Oh shoot. I'm supposed to be at the shooting range."

I left for class with a feeling like there was a giant balloon inside of me. My feet felt like they were floating on air, and I couldn't get rid of the delighted, goofy smile on my face. I was doing that a lot lately— smiling. Usually it took a lot to get me to smile, but the voices of my "friends" rang in my head, telling me that they would join me.

People agreeing with me, not just because I was team leader and we needed to track down a suspect, but because they genuinely wanted to do what I proposed.

It was a wonderful feeling.

* * *

 **What did you think? Predictions for the next chapter? Please review! I'll answer any questions or comments through private messaging.**


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